HELLAS A SHORT HISTORY OF ANCHIENT GREECE

109002

A STATUE OF THE SIXTH CENTUHY

HELm

A SHORT HISTORY
OF ANCIENT GREECE

C. E. ROBINSON

PANTHEON BOOKS

y Pantheon Books, Inc.
\Taslvington Square, 1\ievu York 12, N[. Y.

the exception of plates I, HI, V, IX, XIH,
XIV, and. the illustration on the title page, all
illustrations are the worlc of the author.

Translations, except where otherwise noted,
are by the author.

Plates I, LX and XIV and dust cover are reproduced
from photographs by Nelly's Studio, New Yorlc.

"Printed in the United States of America

Photolithograpned lyy

c The JvLurray Printing Company

Ca-mbridgc, 'M.assachiAsetts

Contents

PREFACE g

INTRODUCTION IT

I. DARKNESS AND LIGHT 13

II. FARMER, TOWNSMAN AND MARINER 26

III. BODY. AND MIND 34

IV. FROM OLIGARCHY TO DEMOCRACY 45

V. UNITY OR ANNIHILATION . . 56

VI. THE AGE OF PERICLES 68

Vfl. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR 106

Vni. DEMOCRACY'S BALANCE-SHEET 124

IX. CHANGING TIMES 135

X. THE BREAK-UP OF GREECE 151

XI. MACEDON AND PERSIA 159

XIL HELLENISTIC CULTURE 169

XIII. THE GREEK GENIUS i?9

INDEX t .. r * 199

- / A f+

List of Illustrations

FULL PAGE PLATES

A STATUE OF THE SIXTH CENTURY . . . . . . Frontispiece

L THE ACROPOLIS Facing page 50

II. RED AND BLACK FIGURE VASES .. .. .. -.51

III. RUINS AT DELPHI . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

IV. ALL-IN WRESTLING . . . . 59

V. VALLEY OF ALPHEUS NEAR OLYMPIA 62

VI. HEAVY ARMED "WARRIOR . . . . . . . . . . 63

A GREEK SOLDIER . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

VII. RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PARTHENON 74

VIII. THE GODDESS ATHENA (Vase Painting) 75

IX. ERECHTHEUM . . . . . . . . 76

X. THE SICK BOY (Vase Painting) 77

XI. THEATRE AT EPIDAURUS 82

XIL THE PIPER 83

BACCHIC DANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

XIII. HEAD OF BRONZE STATUE 186

XIV. FIGURE FROM PARTHENON FRIEZE . . . . . . . . 187

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

LADY OF MYCEN^AN TIMES . . . . . . . . Page 17

A GREEK SHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . ..31

A TRAGIC ACTOR . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

A GREEK TEACHER . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

A LYRE LESSON *. . 102

A GREEK WORKING BOY . . . . . . . . . . 126

PEDAGOGUE AND His CHARGE . . . . . . . . . . 127

A GREEK LADY OF THE FIFTH CENTURY . . . . . . 129

FIRST-AID ON THE BATTUEFEELD . . . . . . . . 172

A SURGICAL OPERATION . . . . . . . . . . 173

GREEK LADY OF ALEXANDRIAN TIMES 175

GOTHIC ARCH AND CLASSICAL PORCH . . . . . . 184

WORSHIP AT BACCHUS' SHRINE . . . . . . . . 192

MOURNERS AT A TOMB 193

MAP OF ANCIENT GREECE . . . . Front end-paper

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE . . . . . . . . Back end-paper

PREFACE

In Greek History, someone has said, little that happened mattered much;
it was what the Greeks thought that counted. This, broadly speaking, is
the truth; and here I have tried to lay the main, emphasis on Greek ideas,
setting them against the background of historic events. Obviously the
best clue to their understanding is to be found in what the Greeks diem-
selves wrote; and, though no English version can be an adequate substitute,
I have given in translation whatever passages appear to me most revealing.
With these it has been my object to convey effectively the author's
meaning rather than slavishly to reproduce his phraseology; and I have
taken, I confess, some liberty with the task, abbreviating by frequent
omissions of words, clauses and even whole sentences, occasionally
elaborating to bring out the full sense, and above all recasting the original
syntactic construction in approximation to our own modern idiom. In
the illustrations, similarly, I have here and there allowed myself the licence
of reconstruction when details have suffered through accident or age.

I have to record with gratitude my great debt to Mrs. Eric James
and Mr. W. H. Plommer and Mr. L. F. R. Audemars for valuable criticisms
and suggestions. My thanks are also due to Messrs. Methuen, the pub-
lishers of my "History of Greece," for permission to produce this comple-
mentary volume. It may be that the reader will be encouraged to further
study of the subject; and on certain points few among many which
limits of space have compelled me to summarize or omit I have ventured
to insert a cross-reference.

C.E.R.

INTRODUCTION

"Nothing moves in the world," it has been said, "which is not Greek
in origin." "Yes, but,*' the critic replies, "the lesson has been learnt long
since: whatever matters in Classical Culture is by now absorbed into the
life-blood of our civilization; further study of it seems superfluous." This
is wholly to misconceive the function and influence of the Classical spirit.
Throughout the centuries Greek thought has displayed an unfailing
capacity to kindle thought in others, and there is scarcely a turning-point
in Western history at which its explosive force has not been at work.
First it broke through the cramping walls of the small Greek states which
bred it, and diffused itself into the larger atmosphere of Alexander's
Empire, transforming the whole life and outlook of the Near East. Next
it penetrated the mind of Rome, shattering the narrow conservatism of
the Republican regime, animating with its cultural ideals the men who
governed the Empire, and finally laying the intellectual foundations of
the Christian Church. At the Renaissance it scattered the mists of mediaeval
obscurantism and opened all manner of new horizons for individual
initiative. Lastly, in inspired the philosophic ideas which underlay the
French Revolution and thus helped to launch the Common Man on his
fumbling, painful and still unfinished search for a better world-order.
For this is the way of the Greek spirit. It destroys, but it destroys to
rebuild; and the constructive impulse, whether its origin be acknowledged
or no, is still operative among us to-day. The more we are able therefore
to understand the principles of its working, the better for ourselves and
posterity.

In all spheres of life religious, artistic, educatitaaLAifcF the rest
stagnation of the human spirit sets in when Means are mistaken for Ends,
when ritualism, for example, is made a substitute for worship, when
technical skill takes precedence over "the search for beauty, or when
pedantry obscures the true appreciation of literature. No age can escape
the temptation; but in a scientific age the temptation is perhaps strongest
of all. The opportunities which Science holds out are so dazzling that it
seems fatally easy to think them desirable in themselves. Yet obviously
it is the use to which they are put that determines their value. The very
same means which, if rightly used, may carry us into Utopia, might

equally land us in the nightmare robotism of some Brave New World.
"Look to the End," said the ancient philosophers; and by that one word
they implied the prime motive force, the final objective and the ideal
consummation of human existence. "View life in its entirety, not piece-
meal," was their message then and is now.

The Greeks never shared our own instinctive distrust of ideas; and
more than with most peoples their practice reflected their thought. By
and large, right or wrong, they observed their own standard of values;
and consciously or unconsciously they distinguished between Means and
Ends. An instance or two must suffice.

They were an acquisitive folk; but wealth, once gained, they regarded
(in the words of their own greatest statesman) as "a means to creative
activity,** or, as we might say, to a fuller and more civilized life.

They were a busy folk too; but they knew that "a pennyworth of
case is worth a penny"; and an existence of indiscriminate hustle would
never have appealed to them.

They were athletic, none more so; but their spare time was devoted
to the exercise of mind, perhaps even more than of body, so that their
word leisure or "schole" took on the meaning of "school." Certainly
about the priority of intellectual over physical values the more thoughtful
among them were never in doubt. If a choice had to be made between
writing a great poem or inventing a new drug, your modern men might
hesitate; the Greek would not.

One last illustration: and for the rest the reader must draw his own
conclusions from the subsequent chapters of this book. No people
believed more wholeheartedly in order and planning; indeed, it was the
secret of nearly all they achieved. But they believed in liberty still more;
and the idea that any free-born individual should become a mere cog in
organization's wheel would have shocked all true Greeks to the core.

Among their many picturesque legends of the Underworld, two are
peculiarly illuminating. One related how a certain criminal called
Sisyphus was there everlastingly doomed to keep pushing a great boulder
uphill, and how, every time the top was reached, it rolled back again to
the bottom. The other told of the Danaid maidens whose equally futile
task it was to pour water into a sieve. In other words, the Ancient Greeks'
notion of eternal punishment was perpetual frustration a Means without
an End.

CHAPTER I
DARKNESS AND LIGHT

a cat dies in a house, its inmates shave their eyebrows; when
a dog dies, they shave body and head all over." So Herodotus
the Greek historian observed when visiting Egypt; and it is hardly
surprising that he thought it a queer sort of country. He saw much in it,
of course, to admire, and, like all Greeks, he was deeply impressed by the
"Wisdom" of its inhabitants. What puzzled him was that their everyday
habits seemed to be the exact opposite of what he was used to at home.
"In Egypt," he says, "women go to market; men stay at the loom.
Women carry loads on their shoulders, men on their heads. Their meals
are eaten in the street; their 'toilette' done indoors. Dough is mixed with
the feet, mortar with the hands. And in writing or counting they work
from right to left, perversely insisting that it is the Greeks who go left-
wards, and they who go to the right." Trifling divergences of custom
we should say and leave it at that. But to Herodotus it was sheer topsy-
turvydom; and in point of fact, if we look below the surface, his instinct
was correct. For the contrast between Egyptian and Greek was far greater
than even he guessed. It went very deep indeed.

Now there is no denying that Egypt possessed a great civilization the
most brilliant civilization which had so far existed in the West. She
produced the engineers who planned the construction of the Pyramids,
the architects who built the gigantic temples still standing by the banks
of the Nile, astronomers who devised a calendar of astonishing accuracy,,
doctors who understood a great deal about human anatomy, and mathe-
maticians who had gone further in arithmetic and geometry than all the
rest of mankind put together. Greek science itself, as we shall presently
see, was to owe a very real debt to these technical and professional
triumphs.

But technical triumphs are no indication of true civilization; men may
invent aeroplanes and motor cars, and men may also use them like devils.
So there is another side to the picture. Despite all the material splendour
of their achievement, the "Wisdom" of the Egyptians the whole
structure of their religious and philosophic thought was built on the
craziest foundation. The Sphinx with its lion's body and human head

13

remains to us as a symbol of their fantastic conceptions. For it was thus
that they imagined their gods. Their mythological lore was full of similar
monstrosities compounded of bird and animal forms in strange com-
binations. Of their bull-god Apis the prototype of the Israelites' Golden
Calf Herodotus has left us a description. "In Cambyses' reign," he says,
"the god Apis appeared in Egypt. He is the calf of a cow which can
never calve again; and when struck by lightning she then conceives Apis.
He is identified by the Mowing markings a black coat with a white
square on the forehead and the figure of an eagle on the back; his tail-
hairs are double and there is a scarab on his tongue. Whence appears,
the Egyptians all put on their best clothes and make merry."

Such superstitious nonsense may sound harmless enough, but beneath
it lay a creed which stunted the mental growth of the entire race. The
ruling Pharaoh, so it was believed, was a Divine being. After his death
and mummification he became a national god, and thus assumed his place
as Director of the Universe. During his lifetime, it followed that as
supreme head of the state he could dictate the beliefs and behaviour of all
his subjects. Under Pharaoh's rule no room was left for the free exercise
of human reason; and a system which confused science with magic and
philosophy with superstition could not but lead to spiritual stagnation. 1
The Hebrew prophet knew what he was talking about when he scornfully
proclaimed "The strength of Egypt is to sit still."

The priesthood was all-powerful. Conserving the traditions and
prescribing the ritual which governed the people's daily lives, they held
all the "keys of knowledge." It was from the priests that Herodotus
acquired his information about the history and geography of the land;
and one story he tells to all appearances against himself is worth
quoting. He was enquiring, he says, about the source of the Nile; and in
a certain temple he got what he wanted from the priest in charge of the
sacred records. Between two distant cities, he was told, were a pair of
conical hills and in the middle of these a bottomless spring out of which
the great river flowed. The name of one hill, his informant assured him,
was Crophi, and the name of the other Mophi. But here the traveller's
eye must have twinkled. This was really too good to be true; and with
characteristic suspicion he inserts the proviso, "I rather fancy he was
pulling my leg."

Here, however, we may hazard a guess that Herodotus was deceived,
for nobody could have believed what an Egyptian priest believed and
yet retained a sense of humour. And in this trivial incident it is not

1 Consider what a stupid monument the Pyramids are; and compare them as the product
of immense human effort with the Tennessee Valley undertaking.

14

perhaps too fanciful to discern the contrast between two different types
of mind on the one hand the mind of the Egyptian, conventional,
conservative, and ready to accept whatever absurdity tradition might
dictate; on the other hand, the mind of the sceptical inquisitive Greek
who would accept nothing at its face value, who sought by all the means
in his power to arrive at the truth, and whose historic task it was to
remodel human, life in the light of his new knowledge. In that contrast
lies the real significance of Greek civilization.

2

Like ourselves, the people of Ancient Greece were of mongrel breed,
a fusion of two racial stocks. The one came down from the North, a
Greek-speaking folk who (as did the Anglo-Saxons in Britain) imposed
their speech on the country. The other was an indigenous race of some-
what mixed stock. Of their language nothing more than a few stray
words survived; but already before the immigrants' arrival we know
that they had developed a very remarkable culture.

Evidences of this ancient pre-Greek culture are widespread round the
Aegean. In the Peloponnese particularly or, as it is now called, the
Morea many remains have come to light. Of these the most impressive
may be seen at Mycenae in the north-east below Corinth. Here still stand
the ruins of a great hill-citadel. Its fortifications are built of huge boulders,
roughly piled in tiers without mortar. On one side of them is an imposing
gateway, flanked by protecting walls and supporting on its gigantic
lintel a magnificent bas-relief of two rampant lions. Inside the fortress
can be traced the foundations of the royal palace; and nearby Dr. Schiie-
mann, the pioneer of excavation in Greece, dug up the royal graves.
Masks of beaten gold had been placed on the faces of the dead and other
golden ornaments buried beside them. The natives were great craftsmen.
They excelled in inlaid metalwork, and their superb painted pottery has
been found in many parts of the country.

The cradle of this culture ky, however, not on the mainland, but in
the island of Crete. Centrally placed on the Mediterranean trade-routes,
Crete had long been in contact with even earlier civilizations. It had
certainly been influenced, perhaps even colonized, by Egypt. The
enormous wealth of its monarchs was won by commerce. The Aegean,
so legend said, was swept by their navies. Almost certainly they dominated
Mycenae and other mainland settlements; and we know from archaeo-
logical finds that their merchants plied for traffic in every quarter of the
Middle Seas. Trinkets made in the island even found their way as far as
Britain.

15

When at the beginning of this century Sir Arthur Evans embarked on
the excavation of Crete, the splendour of his discoveries took even
archaeologists by surprise. At Cnossos he unearthed the royal palace. It
was a vast edifice piled tier by tier up a hillside. It contained broad stone
staircases leading to long stone galleries. In the storerooms were jars each
krgc enough to hold one of Ali Baba's forty thieves. There was an
efficient drainage system constructed with earthenware pipes and superior
to anything known in Europe before the eighteenth century. Here and
there the walls had been painted with gay scenes from contemporary life.
But most sumptuous of all was the royal throne-room, originally sup-
ported upon massive columns of timber and adorned with a frieze of
grifien-like monsters. Decorative art in the West has seldom, if ever,
reached a higher pitch, and the bold rhythmical patterns with which
Cretan pottery was painted varied often with fishes and flowers, more
rarely with human figures might excite the envy of any designer. 1

Such writing as has survived at Crete has never been deciphered. In
any case it is thought to consist of mere traders' inventories. So of the
history and habits of either island or mainland, nothing certain is known.
But of their religion at any rate something may be conjectured partly
from archaeological finds and partly from later survivals.

In many lands of the Mediterranean basin, the powers of fertility had
long been an object of worship. When primitive peoples first discovered
that sex was the origin of birth, they not unnaturally came to regard such
a life-giving force as divine. The source of vegetable-growth was equally
venerated; and along with these cults often went the cult of the dead,
whose spirits, it was thought, could influence earthly life from the
shadowy abyss of the underworld. In Crete, we have reason to believe,
most if not all of these various cults existed. The statue of a fertility
goddess has been dug ug (unless experts are mistaken); and closely
associated with her were two creatures of sinister import, the snake and
the owl. In Crete, too, as in many parts of the world, the bull was
regarded with reverence. Of its cult nothing certain is known, but
paintings have been found which show human beings tossed headlong by
the animal's horns, and there was an old Greek legend that once every
year a tribute of youths and maidens was offered up to a monster half-
human and half-bull who dwelt in the recesses of an intricate labyrinth
There can, in fact, be little doubt that human sacrifice was a ritual of the
gloomy creed which prevailed among the indigenous folk of both Crete
and mainland Greece. Such then was the dark background of mystery,

s "Minoan," after the name of its legendary King
16

A Lady of Mycenaean times: reconstruction of a wall-decoration at Tiryns. 1
1 Compare illustrations on pages 129 and 175.

17

superstition and horror against which the immigrants from the north
were one day to build a new and sunnier edifice of rational thought and
more genuinely civilized life. But now it is time to turn and consider how
these Greek-speaking immigrants first came to the country.

3

Far away in the Balkans and beyond, there was all this while proceeding
one of those great migratory movements which have periodically altered
the face of the Western World. This time it was our own racial ancestors
who were on the move members of that prolific and populous family
which (starting, we may guess, from the shores of the Baltic) spread out
in many directions and came eventually to repeople a large part of
Europe.' Wherever the members of the family went, they carried their
speech with them. Among the central swamps and forests of the continent
it became the German language later to be brought by Anglo-Saxons
to these shores. In Italy it became the language of the Romans. Another
of its variants was Greek; and, most singular of all, it was taken across the
Himalayas into India, and there it has been preserved in the Sanskrit or
Sacred Script in which were written the very ancient religious hymns
still treasured by Hindu Brahmins.

In each of its new homes this Indo-European speech, as it is called,
underwent some natural modification, but not sufficient to obscure its
identity; and scores of words x might be cited to prove the common
origin of these widely scattered peoples peoples who, as we know, were
destined in the fulness of time to change the whole course of human
civilization.

Among the first members of this great family to arrive in the Greek
peninsula were a group known as Achaeans. Some of these elected to stay
in its upper half among the broad plains of Thessaly. Other Achaeans
pushed further south and entered the Peloponnese. Whether they came
as hired mercenaries or simply by-peaceful penetration we cannot tell;
but in any case these Greek-speaking peoples settled down to adopt the
customs and culture of the indigenous population; and, being men of
forceful character, it was not long before they made themselves masters
in the land. For about 1200 B.C. scarcely a century after their first
arrival an Achaean was reigning on the throne of Mycenae. We even
know his name. He was Agamemnon, the man who led an Achaean host
against the Asiatic city of Troy near the mouth of the Dardanelles.

1 A few instances may be given: Greek pater; Latin pater; English father. Greek agr-os;
Latin ag-er, Eng. acre; Grk. treis; Lat. tres; Eng. three; Grk. geran-os; Eng. crane; Grk.
thur-a; Eng. door; and Grk. pher-o; Latin fero; Eng. bear.

18

By now the ferment of migration was gathering strength. Not long
after Agamemnon's day some Thessalian Achseans again crossed the
Aegean and settled along the coast where the way had already been
cleared for them by the destruction of Troy. What prompted their
departure from Europe was no doubt the restless pressure of other Greek-
speaking tribes already arriving out of the north. And about noo B.C.
fresh hordes of these swept down over the whole peninsula. Some settled
in its upper half, others crossed the narrow waters of the Corinthian Gulf
and invaded the Peloponnese. These newcomers Dorians they called
themselves were men of fiercer spirit than their Achaean forerunners.
They sacked Mycenae and burnt it; and their occupation of the country
slow process though this must have been made a violent break in its
history. The old habits of peaceful intercourse, on which the native culture
had been built, were now broken down. The traditions of craftsmanship
gradually decayed. Trade was arrested; and in the course of time the great
civilization, growth of two thousand years and more of patient effort,
was irretrievably destroyed.

But not its memory. This was carried by a further wave of emigrants
to the eastern side of the Aegean; and there in new soil the old seed took
root and bore a fresh blossom of intellectual and artistic genius which
remains one of the wonders of the world.

These emigrants were mixed bands of Achaeans and of the old indi-
genous race, and they hailed from Attica. Thanks to the comparative
infertility of its soil, this district had escaped the inroads of Dorian
destruction; but into it refugees from the terror had crowded for safety;
and, as its space was insufficient for all, an overflow of landless folk took
ship eastward for the Asia Minor seaboard. Here they found a gap still
vacant between the previous settlements made to northward by Achaeans
from Thessaly and to southward by Dorian adventurers from the Pelo-
ponnese. So in this central strip of the coastline henceforth to be known
as Ionia the Attic emigrants made their home, and, strange to say, they
prospered exceedingly. Before many years were out, they were building
up a civilization the first civilization recognizable as essentially Greek
which was destined to stand out as a unique landmark in the history of
human progress. The fact is that these spiritual heirs of the old indigenous
culture proved themselves also intellectually to be the most precocious
members of the whole Greek family; and, the two strains thus blending,
the first fruits of their union were not long to be delayed. For here were
produced, at some date between 900 and 700 B.C., two of the greatest
literary masterpieces of all time the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer.

The origin and authorship of these two poems are an unsolved mystery.

19

But otic thing at least we may accept. Soon after the Trojan War minstrels
began to celebrate that notable Achaean exploit. Their lays and Troy was
not their onlv theme were handed down from generation to generation
of minstrels. Then eventually they were carried over to Asia Minor along
with the emigrants, perhaps in the first instance by the Thessalian Achaean*.
And later on in Ionia though not before 900 B.C. they grew into a
great saga of narrative poetry of which the Iliad and Odyssey alone
survive. Whether those two poems were, as the ancients believed, the
work of a blind bard named Homer, or whether they took shape giadtially
by passing through the hands of a series of poets, it is impossible to say.
Yet to give unity to an epic fifteen thousand lines long must at one stage
or another have required the master-hand of some outstanding genius;
and, although it is unlikely that Iliad and Odyssey were the same author's
workmanship, it will be more convenient henceforth to treat them both
as Homer's.

The theme of the Iliad is the war against Ilion or Troy. Paris, son of
the Trojan King Priam, had eloped with Helen, the beautiful wife of
Mcnfilaus, Agamemnon's brother. Under the latter's leadership an
Achaean host, ctawn partly from the Peloponnese and partly from
Thessaly, set sail for Troy to recover her. For years they fought outside
the city. Then and here the Iliad opens Achilles, the greatest of
Achaan warriors, took offence at some slight and sulked in his tent,
Without him the war went ill for his fellows; and at length under strong
persuasion he lent his arms to his bosom friend Patroclus. Patroclus was
skin by the Trojan champion Hector; and Achilles wild with grief went
forth to take revenge. Three times round the walls of Troy he hunted
the fleeing Hector, then brought him to battle and killed him. Finally
though this is not told in the Iliad the Greeks took the city by a ruse.
Making a great wooden horse, they left it near the walls and feigned
departure. The unsuspecting Trojan dragged the monster inside; but in
the dead of night Greeks, concealed in its belly, slipped out and opened
the gates. Their comrades poured in, and Troy went up in flames.

Tie Odyssey tells of the homeward voyage of Odysseus or Ulysses, a
Greek prince who had sailed to Troy from an island off Western Greece
called Ithaca, His adventures in the palace of the witch-queen Circe whose
spells turned his companions to swine; his hairbreadth escapes from
Scylla and Charybdis, two sea-monsters of the Messina Straits; his
capture by a one-eyed giant, the Cyclops Polyphemus, whom he first
inade drunk and then blinded with a red-hot stake; his final return to
Ithaca where he slaughtered the insolent suitors of his faithful wife
Penelope all this makes a narrative beside which most travellers' stories

pale. The Odyssey is written, in a lighter vein than the Iliad, and has not
the same tragic grandeur. But it contains greater variety and gives a more
detailed picture of everyday life in the Heroic Age.

Homer is telling let us remember of times which he himself had
not witnessed. The culture he describes is the culture of "Golden Mycenae"
in the days before the Dorians came to sack it. Much that he has to tell
tallies closely with what has been discovered both there and elsewhere on
the Greek mainland even down to such*details as the decorations of a
palace or the shape of a drinking cup. The society he depicts was an
aristocratic society. His story is the story of kings and chieftains who rode
into battle behind "high-stepping steeds" while the common folk
marched on foot, or who feasted and drank in their splendid halls while
their underlings served them at table or the plough.

To call them aristocrats, however, may give a false impression. They
were simple folk enough, living much the life of a mediaeval lord of the
Manor, strolling to the harvest-field to watch the reaping, hunting wild
boars on the hills, gossiping on terms of easy familiarity with their
retainers or even their slaves. One of them is described in extreme old
age tending his orchard trees in tattered gloves and gaiters.

But there is none the less great dignity about these men. They possessed
a strong sense of noblesse oblige. Their code of behaviour was high. Fathers
taught it to their sons and the sons' greatest shame was to fall short of
their fathers. Warriors first and foremost, their chief pride was in arms.
"If I must die," says one of them, "let it not be without a blow struck
and glory won and some great deed for men who come after to tell of."
Their manners were courteous. They showed a quick tact to note if
offence were given or to smooth a ruffled temper. They were hospitable
to a fault. No stranger but was sure of a place at their board or a bed in
their verandah. The parting guest was sped with the gift of a golden
goblet or some weapon of war. Towards women they behaved with
consideration and even sympathy in this differing greatly from the
Greeks of historical rimes among whom a woman's influence was slight
and her status unenviable.

In the Odyssey there is one beautiful episode which so well illustrates
the delicacy and refinement of Achaean manners that it seems worth
quoting here if only in abbreviated paraphrase.

Odysseus after shipwreck and an incredible feat of swimming had
reached the land of Phaeacia, and in utter exhaustion had sunk to sleep
on the shore. Here by chance came the King's daughter Nausicaa accom-
panied by her maids and bringing the household linen to wash in an
estuary. After a picnic meal they played "catch," and their ball falling in

21

the water the maids put up a scream. This woke Odysseus, and he came
towards them foul with brine from the sea and holding a branch of
foliage to cover his nakedness. Nausicaa alone stood her ground; and he
addressed her as follows:

"I cast myself on your mercy, kdy queen. Whether you are goddess

or mortal woman I know not. But, if mortal, how happy must your

parents be, and how proud your brothers to see so fair a young thing

take the floor at the dancing. In all my life I never saw man or woman to

match you. You put me in mind how once in Delos by Apollo's altar I

noticed a young palm-tree growing. Never did I set eyes on tree springing

up so fine and straight, and I gazed on it long and wonderingly. And now

I feel the same awe and reverence when I look upon you; and I am too

deeply abashed to approach you or clasp your knees in entreaty. Twenty

days I have been in the deep, till yesterday I escaped here to land. But

now have pity on me, kdy queen. Show me the way to your city and

lend me some wrap from die linen to clothe myself. May the gods give

you your heart's desire, a man to wed and a home and harmony to bless

it. For there is no better thing than this, when a man and wife keep house

together in harmony of spirit, to the sorrow of their foes and the joy of

their friends and in their own two hearts, above all, the happiness ringing."

Odysseus bathed and washed the brine from his body and put on the

clothes she gave him. Then the goddess Athena changed him so that he

was fresh and young again; and when he came out on the shore gleaming

with beauty and grace, the girl was amazed and said to her maids:

"It was surely heaven's will that brought this man to Phaeatia. A
moment ago he was foul to look on, and now he is godlike indeed. Well
content would I be to have a husband like him and that he should dwell
in our land and never leave us."

And then, turning quickly from the sentimental to the practical (a rare

touch^of psychology), she added: "But now, give him food and drink."

So it was the old story of love at first sight, told perhaps for the first

time and never surely with a more tender restraint. Odysseus seems not

to have noticed it. Later, before he left, Nausicaa said her good-bye

God be with you, my friend, and when you reach home, then think

sometimes of me; for you owe me your life"; and he answered (a little

heartlessly perhaps), "God send I may indeed reach my land in a happy

home-coming; and be sure, my lass, that once there I shall ever make my

thanksgiving to the good angel who saved me."

But life in those days was no soft life. War after all was an Achaean's
main business; and the Iliad is as full of the thunder of battle as is the
Odyssey of adventure by sea. Here is struck, as we have said, a deeper

22

note. "It is the mightiest story of the mightiest men. It is also the greatest
dirge for the brave men who are doomed to die young; and the sentiments
and thoughts which such glorious deeds evoke are expressed with a
majesty and simplicity which have no parallel in the literature of the
world.'* x The mightiest men but very human too, men capable of foul
as well as of glorious deeds. When Hector, lying in dust at the feet of his
conqueror, craves that his body may at least be spared mutilation,
Achilles answers with a savagery which almost takes the breath away:
"Dog, would to heaven I had it in me to carve up your flesh and eat it
raw, so surely as none shall save you from the mauling of the beasts."

The Achaean heroes were indeed men of violent and sometimes un-
restrained passions. But then so too were their descendants. Let there be
no mistake about the Greeks. They were vehement in their hatreds and
vehement in their loves; and fond as they were of repeating the adage,
"MSden agan" or "Nothing in excess," it was not because they admired
mediocrity, but because, knowing their own danger of running to
extremes, they recognized the more clearly the need for self-mastery.
Their whole history is the tale of a struggle for the supremacy of reason
over the instincts of barbarism.

It was the continuous endeavour of the "prophets" of Greece (if
"prophets" we may call them) to inculcate these precepts of reasonable-
ness and self-control. Homer the earliest and most influential of them
all set the model of conduct and character for the race. Not that he ever
actually preached. His sentiments are always conveyed through the
mouths of his heroes. Thus, even the voice of Achilles is heard lamenting
his own folly. "Would strife might die among gods and among men and
anger that drives even the wise to vexation, mounting like smoke in the
heart of a man with a sweetness as of slow-dripping honey." By such-like
touches worked with consummate artistry into the narrative, Homer
built up his message. Taking the traditional code of aristocratic behaviour,
and idealizing it (much as Malory in his Morte d' Arthur idealized the
chivalric code of his age), Homer evolved the conception of what, for
lack of a better word, we must call the Greek "Gentleman."

Such a conception can scarcely have been the work of a single brain a
strong argument for ascribing die poems to a series of authors. And still
more is this true in the field of religious ideas. For here, too, the Homeric
epics mark an advance which is even more striking. The Greeks were
convinced polytheists; and though they certainly brought their own
deities with them on entering the land (Zeus lord of the sky and Phoebus
Apollo the sun-god were two of them), yet they must have been ready

1 Quoted from Maurice Baring's "Have you anything to declare?"
23

to acknowledge the gods of the indigenous native and even to identify
their own gods with theirs. Thus Hera, Zeus' wife, was known to Homer
as "Ox-headed" or "Ox-eyed," Athena, Zeus' daughter, as "Owl-eyed"
clear evidence of some amalgamation of cults. Snakes, too, were kept
in many Greek shrines quite late on in history. Human sacrifice was still
known' to Homer; for Agamemnon himself was compelled to slay his
daughter. And, though the deification of sex was no longer paraded, it
still found an echo in the many legends telling of Zeus* amours with
mortal men's wives and in the grossness which accompanied some of the
Greeks' agriculural rites.

But despite such survivals the Homeric poems reveal a complete
transformation of men's idea of the deity. Now the gods dwell no longer
in a shadowy underworld, 1 but in serene sunshine above the snow-
capped peaks of Mount Olympus beyond Thessaly. They are no longer
monstrosities like the Minotaur or the Sphinx, but human in appearance
and human in character, with the frailties as well as the virtues of mankind.
Each has his own personality and his proper function; Phoebus the sun-god
becomes the healer of disease, Athena the patron of crafts, and so on.
They interest themselves greatly in the affairs of men. Nothing could
happen on earth but they had a finger in it was it not by Athena's
magic that Nausicaa fell in love with Odysseus. They are swift to punish
the oath-breaker or to reward the pious, to visit Nemesis on the proud
or avenge the victim of wrong. Fate alone they could not control; not
even Zeus himself might intervene to save a man whose time was come.
The influence of religion on Greek life must not, however, be exagger-
ated. In it, as in the life of all early peoples, there was a vast deal of ritual
and a vast deal of superstitition. But little moral edification could be
gained from the contemplation of a deity like Zeus; and it was character-
istic of Homer and the later Greek "prophets" that they looked manward
rather than godward for their ethical ideals. Nor are the heroes of the
Iliad and the Odyssey mere puppets in the hands of the unseen powers.
By their courage or cowardice, their pride or their piety, they are felt in
some sense to be shaping the issues of their lives. Homer the artist saw
deeper than Homer the theologian; and it was perhaps his supreme
achievement that he recognized the human individual to be, if not indeed
the "master of his fate,** yet at the very least the "captain, of his soul."

The place which the poems held in the national mind finds no parallel
in secular literature. They were to the Greeks much what the Old Testa-
ment was to the Jews. They were recited at their great religious festivals.
Children were brought up on them. Schoolboys learnt them by heart.
1 This Underworld was henceforward reserved for the souls of dead mortals.

Adults quoted them as we might quote the Bible; and even philosophers
appealed to them as though to an authoritative source. Nor was this any
mere adulation of a literary masterpiece. In Ionia, with the creation of
these poems, had been born a new sense of human dignity and human
destiny. The old order was passing away. The gloom of Crete had been
dissipated. Egyptian absurdities had been left behind. The Greeks had
still a long way to travel and superstition died slow. But already they had
turned away from the darkness and set their face towards the sunlight.
It would be hard indeed to think of Achilles or Hector grovelling to a
scareb-marked calf. Still less can we imagine the "wily Odysseus" obeying
an order to shave his eyebrows because a cat had died or to fasten golden
bracelets on the front paws of a sacred crocodile.

CHAPTER II

FARMER, TOWNSMAN AND MARINER

i. THE CITY STATE

Qome memories of the great emigrations, the composition of the
^Homeric poems, and a few semi-historical legends this is all there is
to show for the three hundred years which followed the Dorian Invasion.
Darkness and chaos settle down on the land; and when Greece emerges
at last into the light of recorded history, the period of resettlement is over
and the national life has begun to assume the pattern of which the succeed-
ing chapters of this book will trace the development.

Tacitus, the Roman writer of the first century A.D., has given a descrip-
tion of the Germany of his day. There the political unit was still the tribe
a group of kindred. At its head was a king, commander of the host.
Under him were a number of chieftains, representatives of leading
families; and these met in council to tender him advice the equivalent
of the "Witangemot" in Anglo-Saxon England. From time to time over
issues of major importance, the common folk were collected in an
assembly or "moot," either to give assent to the Council's decisions by
clashing their shields or alternatively to express disapproval by hooting.

What Tacitus observed among the primitive Germans, was also true
of the primitive Greeks. Among them, too, when they came to settle for
good, the same three elements existed King, aristocratic Council, and
popular Assembly. In some states these three elements persisted well into
historical times; but in all the power of the King sooner or later
declined, given place at first to Aristocracy and in some cases eventually
to Democracy.

By its geographical configuration Greece falls into natural divisions.
Among the mountains which cover a large part of the peninsula, are
numerous small valleys or plains, not more on an average than twenty
miles long and less than a dozen miles wide. Cut off from each other by
the intervening hills, these valleys were to prove an ideal breeding-ground
for political development. But the process of consolidation into what we
ourselves should call states, was a matter of time. At first several tribes
perhaps would settle in a single valley, portioning out the available land,
the best portions to King and nobles, but a small plot at least to each
commoner. The immediate task was the struggle for existence. Sustenance

26

had to be found for a growing community, and for a long period there
was little time or energy for much else.

In Greece as in all countries before the Industrial Revolution, the vast
majority of men were- always farmers or peasants. The plainland, though
in parts pretty fertile, was strictly limited in extent; and once the foothills
were reached, rock came close to the surface; so that every scrap of soil
must be carefully husbanded by terracing and continuous toil. Summer
droughts parched it; winter storms, which send torrents streaming down
the slopes, scoured it away. Some scanty grazing could be had on the
mountains. Sheep were kept for their wool; goats and more rarely cows
for their milk. An animal was too precious to be killed for the table; and
meat was seldom eaten except on festal occasions when a part of the
flesh had first been sacrificed to some god. Corn grown in the plains
provided the main staple of diet, though bread was often seasoned with
pickled fish. Olive-trees, whose soft grey-green foliage still shimmers
over the Greek countryside, furnished oil then a most precious com-
modity fulfilling the functions t>f paraffin, butter and soap. Everywhere,
too, the vine was grown. As in most parts of the continent to-day, wine
mixed with water was the national drink. In days when sugar-cane and
sugar-beet were unknown, honey served their purpose.

But agriculture, as we have said, was a struggle against odds. Plough-
oxen would die in winter for lack of fodder. Harvests would fail from
drought; and the spectre of famine was never far distant. "Bad in winter,
cruel in summer, never good," was the verdict of the rustic poet Hesiod
on village life in the eighth century B.C.

Yet if the Greeks had never been anything but farmers, Greek History
would not be studied to-day. Town-life, even during the chaos of the
Dark Age, had never altogether disappeared. The author of die Homeric
poems knew of it not only by hearsay. The vivid pictures he gives of it
are evidence that he had seen it for himself. He tells, for instance, of one
city inhabited by sea-going folk. "Round it was a high wall and the way
to it ran across a narrow spit with a fair haven on this side and that; and
beside the road were beached the rowing-vessels; each man had his slip.
Beyond, surrounding the sea-god's fair shrine, lay the place of assembly,
walled with large boulders dragged thither." In another passage he
describes the scenes carved on the metal surface of a shield. "In one
quarter," he says, "was a city; and in the city a marriage-festival was
going on. Brides were being led by torchlight through the streets; and
the wedding-hymn rang loudly to the tune of psaltries and pipes, while
in their porches the women looked on admiringly. Elsewhere the folk
had gathered in the market-place, and there a quarrel had arisen over the

27

blood-money due for a murdered man. One party publicly declared he
would pay, the other would not have it that way, and both wished to
lay the matter before an umpire. The people, held back by the heralds,
shouted support to this party or that. Nearby on a sacred circle of polished
stones sat the elders. Each in turn took a baton from the hands of the
heralds and went forward to deliver his verdict; and in the middle of all
lay two golden talents to be given to whoever were adjudged to have
made the fairest decision."

In this scene may be perceived the germ of a new and promising growth
towards a better-ordered, more politically conscious society. And in many
Greek valleys, before the Dark Age was over, a township, such as Homer
depicts, was already coming to be the centre of the people's life. At
Athens, for example, in the plain of Attica the nucleus of such a town had
certainly grown up under the great rock-citadel, kter known as the
Acropolis. Thucydides, the fifth century Historian, has recorded the first
step, and a very momentous step, in its political development.
"Originally," he says, "there were many townships in Attica, each
administering its own aflairs and often at war with its neighbour. But
Theseus (a legendary monarch as it might be our own King Arthur)
united all the inhabitants of Attica, establishing at Athens one central
Council and a common Town-hall. Though they continued to live on
the land, Theseus compelled them to resort to the new metropolis and
all were duly inscribed on her citizen-roll." From such an act of union
sprang what is known to history as the "City State." The City State,
then, was a political unit embracing an area equivalent to a small
English county; and by virtue of membership therein, as Thucydides
implies, every free-born inhabitant of that area enjoyed the advantages
of centralized government and came increasingly, as we shall see, to
take a personal hand in it.

New ideas demand a new usage of words; and it is Highly significant
that "Polis" the Greek word for "city" was henceforth used for the
"state." From the word is derived, of course, our own word "politics."
And, more important, from the new synthesis of meaning was to spring
pur own conception of the State. That conception was not to be found
in the previous civilizations of antiquity. No "politics" in our sense were
possible under the absolute monarchs of Egypt or Mesopotamia. No
genuine idea of "citizenship" is traceable among the Old Testament Jews.
Their kings sent men to death like irresponsible despots; and when the
Hebrew prophet denounced social wrongs, he appealed to the justice of
Jehovah, not to the Rights of Man. It was not, in fact, until the Greek
experiment was made that the whole life of a scattered populace was thus

28

knit together in a constitutional system a system which was at once the
guarantee of the individual's civic liberties and also the focus of his civic
loyalties and obligations.

Whoever said that men first came together in cities to find Justice, was
not wide of the mark. What value was set upon Justice even among the
primitive Greeks is shown by the previously-quoted passage from Homer.
The populace held strong views about the rights and wrongs of the
quarrel. Both parties desired a fair ruling; and two golden talents was
not thought too high a price for obtaining one. In the centralized court
of the Polis Justice would be still more jealously guarded. The aristocratic
judges would be more closely watched; and a stronger public opinion
would be focussed on their decisions. Every citizen, rich or poor, well-
born or commoner, was now legally on an equal footing. Fair play was
to be the ever-growing demand of the masses; and there could be no
worse outrage in the eyes of a true Greek than condemnation without
proper trial. The privilege of arguing his case and standing up for his
right was breath of life to him; and as a member of the Polis he was
assured of that privilege. Justice, in short, was not least of the reasons why
the new political union appealed to him, and why he came to take a
conscious pride in his membership of the wider community.

But then, as now, town-life had other attractions. These grew with
time, and more and more folk, in Attica at least, must have moved in to
live at the capital. The Greeks were nothing if not sociable. They enjoyed
the stir and bustle of the city, the processions and pageants, the dancings
and choir-singings, and, when these too became the fashion, the dramatic
entertainments. In the market higgling for purchases gave zest to the
daily round. It brought a chance too of meeting friends. The Greeks were
great talkers, voluble, argumentative and excitable. They loved nothing
better than to foregather for a gossip. The warmth of a smith's forge
made it a popular rendezvous, and the barber's shop rivalled it. In such
ways, and many others, urbanization, as one of their philosophers said,
enabled men to live a fuller and better life.

The date which tradition assigned to the unification of Attica was
absurdly remote; but it can hardly have occurred later than 700 B.C. In
some parts of Greece, where the country was wilder and the people more
backward, such unification was longer in coming; in certain districts it
never came at all. But in the principal plains or valleys City States were
formed pretty early. 1 Thus between Athens and the Isthmus there was
Megara; on the Isthmus itself Corinth, south of Corinth near the old site

1 In none, however, was the process of unification so complete as in Attica, and local
townships were frequently not absorbed. Athens in a large measure owed her greatness to
her uniquely centralized government.

29

of Mycenae was Argos, and lower down in the Peloponnese Sparta. In
upper Greece and bordering on Attica, Boeotia produced several cities
of which Thebes was the chief. And besides all these, there were many
others too insignificant for mention. So, by the time when history
proper begins, Greece was already divided up into a score or more of
independent City States, some larger, some smaller, but all intensely
jealous of their neighbours and ready on the smallest provocation to go
to war with them. As may equally be seen in the history of North Italy
during the early Renaissance, local patriotism and local rivalries are apt
to be strongest when the political units of a society are small. 1

2

Whether town-life or country-life usually does more to breed a spirit
of adventure, there can be no doubt about the Greeks. They were perhaps
the most adventurous people in history. Living as most of them did
within sight of the coast, they had the sea in their blood, and the popularity
of the Odyssey testifies to their love of maritime enterprise. From Homer,
too, a good deal may be gleaned about their methods of navigation.
Hoisting their solitary sail to a following wind or, if that failed them,
falling back on the oar, they would creep along, whenever possible,
within sight of land (for in those compassless days the open sea was a
nightmare). When they wished to sleep and eat, they would haul their
ship ashore. No doubt, like Odysseus' crew, they argued endlessly with
the skipper, and no doubt they grumbled as much. The Odyssey, indeed,
is full of the weariness of the rowers and the desperate hazards of current
or storm. But, when navigation became more skilful and ships more
seaworthy, the Greeks enjoyed their cruises over the "wine-dark" waters
of the sunny Aegean. One of them an olden-time Masefield has left a
record of his own enjoyment:

O set me in the poop with a pallet for my bed

and the sea-spray drumming on the leather overhead;

mill-stones for fire-place where the flames flicker through

and the stew-pot's a-bubble and the cook minds the stew;

ship's plank for table with a sail thrown across

and boatswain's merry whisde and a game of "Pitch-and Toss"

for I love my fellow-men and I'd have the same again

as I had it not so many days ago.

But the Aegean was not enough to content Greek mariners. From the
earliest times they pushed boldly further afield northwards into the
Black Sea (the "Euxine" or "Hospitable" as with euphemistic super-

i In modern times rivalries between larger states have unhappily become no less bitter
but that is because w*h the improvement of communications the world has shrunk!

30

stition they called it) southwards to Libya, eastwards to Egypt, and
westwards not only to Sicily and Italy but as far as Spain and Southern
France. It seems tolerably certain that Greeks were the first of Mediter-
ranean navigators to reach our own island; and Homer even knew sailors'
tales of the land of the Midnight Sun, "where herdsman calls to herdsman
as the one drives in; and the other, as he drives forth, answers back. There
a man who slept not, might earn a double wage, by shepherding and

A Greek ship with sail furled to the yard-arm. (Taken from a vase-painting.)

tending cattle turn about; so narrowly are divided the ways of the Day
and the Night/'

Trade was, of course, the original purpose, as it was also the increasing
result of this audacious exploration. But it had another and very remark-
able consequence. As we have already seen, the chief problem confronting
the young Greek communities was how to provide for a growing
population. Emigration to Asia Minor had provided no more than a

temporary solution. The population still grew. Arable land was limited,
and there were more mouths than its resources could feed. There remained
but two alternatives to emigrate or to starve. So from about 800 B.C.
onwards began a deliberate policy of colonization. It was no random
enterprise of hunger-stricken refugees. It was planned and well-organized,
and there could be no better proof that the governing-class of the new
City States took their responsibilities seriously. The magnitude and scope
of die movement was incredible. A single Ionian city, Miletus, sent out
no fewer than eighty colonies. The islanders of Euboea on the European
side of the Aegean showed an almost equal vigour. Other states, such as
Corinth, for example, also played an important part. The result was that
in the course of a century and a half between 750 and 600 B.C. not
merely were the shores of the Black Sea and the Northern Aegean
colonized liberally, but Sicily and the southern part of Italy were also
dotted by Greek coastal settlements. Even as far west as the South of
France a colony was planted at Marseilles.

These colonies carried with them the political institutions of home.
Each became an independent City State. They seldom had formal
relations with the parent-city; they paid her no tribute. Apart from
sentimental ties of common customs and occasional reunions for joint
religious rites, they acknowledged no allegiance. They resented her
interference, and only on rare occasions of special peril did they appeal
for her armed assistance. 1

Like the City States of the motherland, the colonies depended at first
on their agriculture, but trade^soon developed; and this indeed was the
original purpose of some settlements, notably those made by Miletus.
Geographical conditions favoured an exchange of commodities. Round
the Black Sea, for instance, where corn grew well, the vine and olive
did not; so in return for wine and oil, 2 the colonists shipped grain home
to Greece. Athens as we shall see, with her growing population, came
more and more to rely on this source of supply. Such exchange was greatly
assisted by the issue of coined currencies. This innovation came from
Lydia, an inland kingdom of Asia Minor. But once the Greeks learnt it,
its use spread rapidly and repkced the old-fashioned method of barter.
So commerce flourished as never before; and the Aegean and the Southern
Adriatic must have been the scene of a busy traffic which served to knit
together in friendly intercourse the scores of small City States of which
the Greek world was now composed.

* Hence the fine collections of Greek pottery in Russian Museums.

32

Yet, sharing though they did a common religion, a common language,
common political habits, and with a certain qualification a common
outlook on life, the members of the Greek world were no nearer to unity.
Their love of independence outweighed all advantages of political fusion.
Quarrels between individual states or groups of states were incessant,
and throughout her history internecine war remained the curse of the
country. If ever a people committed racial suicide, it was the Greeks.

33

CHAPTER III
BODY AND MIND

A strictly uniform outlook on life, we have implied, was scarcely to
jL\be expected of Greeks; their personalities were too strong. We may,
however, discriminate between two broad groups of them, each roughly
homogeneous in type and each representing one or other of the two
original racial stocks. In one group were the folk of Attica and its offshoot
the lonians, both claiming descent from the old indigenous natives.
The other group were descended from the Dorian invaders Spartans,
Argives, Corinthians and other Peloponnesian peoples. The racial
distinction between the two groups may not in reality have gone very
deep; for other elements, the Achaean, for example, must have inter-
mingled with both. Still the Greeks themselves believed in the distinction,
and on the strength of it a conscious antagonism developed between the
two groups. How strongly their types were contrasted will be shown in
this chapter.

i. SPARTA

Pre-eminent among the Peloponnesian group were the Spartans; and
in them the Dorian type assumed its most extreme form. By comparison
with lonians most Dorians were unintellectual; the Spartans for reasons
later to be discussed were downright anti-intellectual. Most Dorians
inclined towards conservatism; the Spartans for the same reasons were
ultra-conservative. Thus, long after most Greek states had discarded it,
they still clung to the monarchya dual monarchy at that, representative
of some early fusion of two tribal groups. Again, in the Spartan Assembly,
the vote was still taken by a ridiculously primitive method; the opposing
sides both shouted and the louder shout won. More powerful, however,
than either Monarchy or Assembly was the aristocratic Council; and
here, too, the same conservative instinct insisted that the Council should
represent the wisdom of age; no member might be less than sixty years
oli The sole innovation in the Spartan constitution concerned the
executive. In war-time the two kings as commanders-in-chief were all-
powerfuL But a hereditary monarchy is no guarantee of peace-time
efficiency; so every year by the vote of the Assembly five executive
officials known as "Ephors" were appointed. Their power grew with

34

time, and at last they even took to interfering in the king's direction of
campaigns. This curiously mixed constitution a blend of monarchy,
aristocracy and popular representation continued almost unchanged for
hundreds of years.

The political conservatism of Sparta sprang (as we have hinted) from
certain historical causes, and to understand these we must first consider
the lie of the land. Between the three great southerly spurs in which the
Peloponnese terminates, ky two fertile valleys, the Vale of Lacedaemon,
in which Sparta itself stood; and westwards of this, beyond a high
mountain range, the Vale of Messenia. When first the Dorian invaders,
the. Spartans' forbears, settled, they had reduced the natives of the eastern
valley to serfdom. But, even with these serfs to work it, the territory
proved insufficient for their needs; and towards the close of the eighth
century they had crossed the mountain barrier and annexed Messenia,
making serfs of its natives too. A couple of generations later about
650 B.C. the Messenian serfs rebelled; and only after a lengthy struggle
during which their warlike poet, Tyrtseus, sustained their flagging spirit,
did the Spartans fight them down. For the master-race this revolt had
been a terrible warning, "a matter of life and death, and to prevent the
possibility of its recurrence the Spartans undertook a drastic reform.
Hitherto, we are told, they had been a normally pleasure-loving and even
luxurious people; but now, by an effort of will-power unparalleled in
history (though the rise of National Socialism in Germany bears it a
certain resemblance), they transformed their whole manner of life. They
appointed a law-giver named Lycurgus, 1 and he instituted a system, the
main object of which was to turn every free-born Spartan into a pro-
fessional soldier. Henceforward the interest of the community was
all-in-all; the individual counted for nothing; and from the cradle to the
grave the Spartan citizen became, as it were, the chattel of die state.

This totalitarian regime began at birth. If adjudged a weakling, the
Spartan boy was exposed on die mountainside to die. If fit for survival,
he remained seven years in his home. Spartan women were as tough as
their menfolk. They were much valued as nurses in the rest of Greece,
and their own children had a rigorous upbringing. "Come back with
your shield or on it," these mothers used to say when their sons went off
to the .wars; and their scorn was even known to drive the survivors of a
lost battle to suicide.

At seven die boy left his mother's side and was drafted into a troop.
Here an adult Spartan presided, assisted by attendants called "Floggers."

1 No details whatever are known of Lycurgus' life. It may be that he was a mythical
figure invoked to lend authority and sanctity to the reforms.

35

Some boys were made "prefects," and permitted to fag their subordinates.
They were scantily clad and went barefoot in winter. Physical training
was their chief occupation. They learnt to swim, run, jump, wrestle and
box, and, above all, to dance. For in Greece rhythmical movement was
thought a good training, not for body merely, but for character. Even
sports like wrestling were normally accompanied by the pipes. War-songs
were chanted by massed bands of boys in a sort of musical drill. Every
Spartan was expected to be able to sing; and all learnt by heart the ballads
of their patriot-poet Tyrtaeus.

Great attention was given to the training of character. Self-control,
modesty and strict obedience were the primary virtues. Once a year there
was a competition of endurance held at an altar a survival probably of
some early barbaric rite. Youths were flogged till they fainted, sometimes
even died. He was winner who stuck it out longest. In behaviour the
Spartan boy was a model of propriety. When walking down the street,
he held his eyes on the ground and his hands under his cloak. If taken by
his father to the men's mess-room, he sat on the floor, seen but not heard,
listening to the adults' conversation. He was expected, when asked, to
answer such questions as "What makes a good citizen? Who is the best of
the grown-ups?"

His mind was not entirely neglected. Great stress was laid on the
cultivation of memory. The code of state-laws and the poems of Homer
were learnt by heart. But, if one Athenian author spoke truly, few
Spartans were literate. "They will never even hear of my works," he
complained, "unless they are read out loud to them." Arithmetic was
considered superfluous. Citizens were not permitted to trade, and so had
no need to count. Rhetoric and the art of argument (so popular elsewhere
in Greece) were thought dangerous to discipline and accordingly banned.
Yet Spartans had a rough wit of their own and affected a terse manner of
speech. "Breakfast here, supper in Hades," one remarked on the morning
of a battle. On another occasion, an envoy of a foreign state, seeking
military aid, addressed a long speech to the Council. When it was finished,
he was told that they could not remember the first half nor follow the
second. Next day, accepting the hint, he reappeared with an empty sack.
"Sack wants flour," was all he said. "Sack" was one word too many, was
the Council's retort

So a Spartan grew up intellectually starved. Much better he should
not use his mind or learn to think for himself; his duty was to obey and
keep his body fit. At eighteen he was drafted into the "Secret Corps"
the Spartan "Gestapo." Its business was to keep a watchful eye on the
serfe or, as they called them, Helots. Dangerous characters among them

36

had to be "liquidated," and the quicker and more quietly the better. On
one occasion, Thucydides tells us, "die authorities announced that, who-
ever of the Helots could make out a claim to have rendered special service
in war, should receive his freedom. Two thousand or so then applied.
They were feted with flowers and marched the round of the temples in
triumphal procession. Everyone presumed that their liberty was assured.
But before many days passed, every one disappeared, and nobody knew
how they came by their end."

From this horrible tale, it is clear that at the back of the Spartans' mind
still lay the haunting fear of revolt. They were living, so to speak, on a
volcano, a tiny handful of men never more than 8,000 strong in the
midst of a population of potential rebels numbering perhaps 200,000 souls.
Little wonder that their manhood as well as their youth was spent in the
practice of arms. Their daily life was passed in messes. Their food was
brought in by Helots from the farms, so they had no need to engage in
agriculture. They were forbidden to trade; that was left to a half-privileged
class neither serfs nor citizens who appear to have been Achaean
survivors of the original Dorian Conquest. Even the hoarding of money
was rendered almost impossible; for the state-currency was deliberately
confined to old-fashioned iron "spits" or ingots. So most of a Spartan
man's day was spent in physical exercise or on the drill-ground. They
became, in consequence, the finest soldiers in Greece. Other states called
up their amateur militia from farm or workshop only when war broke
out In the long run it was impossible for these to stand up to the pro-
fessional Spartans.

There were protracted wars, stubbornly fought; but before the
Lycurgan reform was a century old, Sparta had brought under her
hegemony nearly the whole of the Peloponnese the Arcadians of the
central plains, tie Corinthians on the Isthmus and many other less
important communities. 1 The Argives, though suffering a severe defeat,
were alone successful in maintaining complete independence. They were
forced to cede some territory, it is true; but Sparta's real object was not
annexation. She already had as much land as she wanted. Nor did she
seriously curtail the liberty of her subject-allies. They were bound, if
required, to join her in war and to contribute a war-tax; but such issues
were decided by a Confederate Council, and on this each of the subject-
allies had a vote. For the rest they were left to manage their own affairs
as they liked.

The truth is that in her foreign policy, as in everything else, Sparta's
actions were dictated by her fear of the Helots. "What she chiefly desired
1 For a more detailed account of Sparta's campaigns, see G. H., Chapter VI.

37

was that neighbouring states should be sympathetic to her own ways or
life. What she chiefly dreaded was the emergence of revolutionary or
popular governments, which might put dangerous ideas into the heads
of her serfs. So, wherever possible, she encouraged an oligarchic regime
in the states of her Confederacy.

The historian Thucydides has left a shrewd analysis of the Spartan
character. "They were conservative," he says, "and slow to act even in
emergencies. Cautious even when caution was unnecessary, they never
dared to put out their full strength. Their stay-at-home habits inclined
them to hang back from foreign adventure; and where others thought
only of adding to their possessions, the Spartans were haunted by the
fear of losing what they had/* And then there were other defects on which
Thucydides is silent. They produced no art, 1 and, of course, no literature.
Only once or twice in their history did they throw up a really "great
leader. They were bullies at home, and, if it suited them, they could be
bullies abroad. Even their boasted discipline had its flaws, and when in
foreign lands and so beyond the reach of watchful authority, it was not
unknown for them to take to drink.

Yet Sparta was successful, dominating mainland Greece for the best
part of two hundred years. Success is always admired; and there was
much, too, in the Spartan character and institutions which appealed
strongly to Greek instincts. Their courage, their splendid physique, their
athletic prowess, their complete subordination of the individual to the
State, above all, perhaps, the unique stability of their constitutional
regime these were virtues which held a high place in the moral and
political code of even the best Greek thinkers. So a blind eye was turned
on the cruelties, the squalor and the many vices or deficiencies of "Black
Sparta." It is scarcely too much to say that Greece looked up to her; and
even in Athens, where, at least, men should have known better, many
conservative-minded gentry made it a fashion to sing her praises. One
day though this was still far distant they were to be sadly undeceived.

2. IONIA

The cult of the body bulked large in Greek life. Exercise on the sports-
ground was a daily habit with those who had the leisure. Many carried
it well past middle-age; and one Attic vase-painter has left us a comical
picture of a pot-bellied gentleman stripping for the fray. Successful
athletes were feted like national heroes; even philosophers, when enumer-
ating the qualities essential to happiness, gave a high pkce to good
Before the Lycurgan Reform, however, the art of Spartaparticularly in carvine of
^ r0miSC; ^ ** th Uh ^ I******* extinguished, gradually

38

physique and good looks. The unathletic, correspondingly, were regarded
askance. The dramatist got an easy laugh who portrayed some seedy-
looking scholar engaged on his studies. Special contempt was felt for soft
Eastern peoples, luxuriously lounging on litters or propped among
pillows in their dimly-lit houses. Even the lonians were thought to be
somewhat tainted by this enervating oriental culture, and to lack true
virility. Nevertheless, the best Greeks were too much interested in things
of the mind to ignore the other side of the lonians' character. They
recognized their debt a debt we ourselves must acknowledge to the
brilliant intellectual initiative of this remarkable people.

Environment played its part in their precocious development. Some-
thing was probably due to the native inhabitants of the coast, among
whom they had originally settled; for these, as the splendours of Troy
showed, were by no means a backward race. More fruitful, however,
were the contacts which were very soon made with other and greater
civilizations. Phoenicians, hailing from the Syrian coast-towns of Tyre
and Sidon, did much early trade in the Aegean; and from them the lonians
learnt a highly important art, lost apparently since the palmy days of
Crete, the art of writing. Its reintroduction may well account for the
culminating stage in the creation of the Homeric poems; for to compose
such lengthy works without writing them down would seem an incredible
feat. In any case, the Phoenician alphabet was certainly adopted in Ionia
not much later than 1000 B.C. It required some adaptation to suit the
Greek language; for as in the Hebrew ! (which it closely resembled),
vowel-symbols were lacking, and to provide these other of its letters
were pressed into service. From the Greeks it was ultimately passed on
to Rome, and from Rome to the rest of Europe, where it still, of course,
remains our own script of to-day.

Another valuable invention, the minting of money, came from Lydia.
This kingdom in the hinterland of Ionia was to prove a dangerous
neighbour; but at least it was commercially useful, serving as a link with
the great civilization of Mesopotamia.

But the main channel of trade was by sea; and for this Ionia was
excellently placed. Her principal produce was wool drawn from the
upland sheep-farms; and the chief mart of export and exchange was the
town of Miletus. This prosperous port, standing on a headland near the
mouth of the River Meander, came into prominence during the eighth
century B.C. The enormous effort, which sent overseas no less than eighty
colonies, was good proof of its people's energy; and much of that energy

1 The names of the first Greek letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma may be recognized as
identical with Aleph, Beth and Gimel, which appear in the Bible as the alphabetical headings
of the first three sections of the upth Psalm.

39

was presently thrown into commerce with Egypt. At Naucratis in the
Nile Delta a merchants' settlement was founded, and the intercourse thus
established with the oldest of civilizations was to have surprising
consequences.

Where traders go, travellers can follow. The Greeks were an inquisitive
race; and Herodotus mentions how 'many went to Egypt, "some on
business and some simply for sightseeing." Milesians who went in these
earlier days came home much impressed. The "wisdom of Egypt*' had
set them thinking, and some began to undertake researches of their own.
One, Anaximander, made the first map of the world. His geographical
ideas were peculiar. The whole earth was divided into two roughly equal
continents, Europe and Asia ("Libya" counting as part of the latter), and
cutting across either continent ran the two Rivers Danube and Nile.
Besides his map, Anaximander constructed a sundial and a globe of the
heavens. Astronomy in those days was of great practical use (for naviga-
tion at night was impossible without it) and important work had been
done by Egyptian astronomers. Inspired by this, another Milesian named
Thales took up the study and succeeded in predicting an eclipse of the
sun, which duly took place on May 28th, .585 B.C.

But something else of far greater importance resulted from Thales*
astronomical interests. His inquisitive Greek mind was not content with
mere mathematical calculations; and he began to speculate on the pro-
founder problem "Of what is the universe made"? It was not the first
time that a guess had been hazarded. In the account of Creation, as it
appears in the Bible, there, is a curious assumption. Jehovah apparently
did not create water; it already existed, waiting to be divided into the
Sea and the Sky. This idea no doubt Babylonian in origin was also
current in Egypt; and Thales seems to have taken it as a basis for his own
speculation. "Everything that exists," he said, "comes ultimately from
water." He had evidently thought it out. Evaporated water makes the
sky; deposit at river-mouths shows that water also makes soil; all animals
and vegetables depend on the same life-giving source. In some such way
Thales must have reasoned primitive logic perhaps, but an intellectual
advance of supreme significance. For in reasoning thus he gave a rational
basis to what had hitherto been litde more than a Babylonian fairy-tale.
He assumed, in short, that natural phenomena were no mere conjuring-
trick on the part of some god; they were explicable by the reason of man.
And from that assumption was born the conception not only of Science,
but in embryo form of Philosophy itself.

Once Thales had posed his great question, other lonians carried on the
enquiry. Rival theories were formed; but, ingenious as these were, their

40

authors relied too much on the guesswork of their own brilliant minds
and too little on observation of facts. Most interesting of them all was
Pythagoras, who broke clean away from current Ionian thought as
initiated by Thales and rejected the pure materialism on which its explana-
tion of the Universe was based. Though an Ionian himself, born on the
island of Samos not far from Miletus, he migrated to South Italy and
settled at Croton. There he gathered round him a body of pupils. Disciples
would perhaps be a better word; for the master's doctrine had a strong
religious trend. Mathematics was the chief object of his study, and a
famous geometrical theorem still bears his name. But what the Egyptians
had treated mainly as a technical art with many practical uses, became in
Pythagoras' hands an abstract science worthy to be pursued for its own
sake alone. Nor was this all; for he went on to build up a philosophy on
a mathematical basis. Harmony, he believed, was the root principle of
the Universe; and the numbers, which governed such harmony, possessed
a mystic significance. Just as he discovered the vibrations of a harp-string
to be related to the length of the string, so similar relations, he thought,
might be discovered among all created things. Indeed, the mysterious
properties of numbers might even extend to a much wider field 1 moral
kws, for example.

All this sounds like nonsense, yet it finds an odd counterpart in some
modern theories. Rhythm indubitably plays a part in natural phenomena,
the movement of heavenly bodies, the rotation of seasons, the breeding
of animals, and the pulsation of blood. Hence harmony, it is argued, may
very well react on spiritual as well as on physical health; and by careful
measurement of bodily proportions some psychologists have even
claimed to discover a relation between these and personal character. Be
that as it may, in Pythagoras' own age his ideas found still stranger
application to practical life. His formulae of mystical numbers were used
in town-planning. Architects studied them when designing their build-
ings, and one sculptor even worked out mathematically the ideal pro-
portions of the human figure.

The religious trend of Pythagoras' philosophy was reinforced by a
mystical religious cult which about this time swept the Greek world. It
was known as Orphism, and in accordance with its tenets Pythagoras
himself held the theory that the human soul comes from God; man's
duty, therefore, is to keep free the divine element from the contaminations
of body, and this could only be done by ritual purifications such as
abstention from certain foods and other ascetic practices. It was also part
of Pythagoras' creed that the soul migrates from one body to another;
and a famous parody represented him as banning the bean from his diet

41

lest he might unwittingly swallow his grandmother's soul. But however
others might scoff, the austere mysticism of the master drew many
devoted followers round him; and the community over which he
presided lived in almost monastic observance of his rigorous discipline.

There had now arisen, as may readily be seen, a serious divergence
between the two schools of thought. The lonians had sought to trace the
whole universe to a purely physical source, while the Pythagoreans
insisted that the soul, being divine and immortal, was but temporarily
entangled with Matter. It remained for Heraclitus, an Ionian of Ephesus,
to try and harmonize the conflict. Fire he held to be the fundamental
source of existence, and from Fire, he argued, came mist, from mist
moisture, and from moisture soil. From these four elements Fire, Air,
Water and Earth all things are composed. But more than this, Heraclitus
saw that all phenomena, as perceived by the senses, are perpetually
changing and never remain long the same. Change then, and not Har-
mony, he declared, was the principle of the Universe. "Everything," he
said, "is in flux/* "We are and are not; waking is the same as sleeping;
youth the same as age." In other words, whether young or old, awake or
asleep, a person remains the same person still. But at the centre of all
contemplating the eternal mutation of things stands the Reason of Man;
and this reason he identifies with the divine element Fire, out of which
the whole universe springs. Not that Heraclitus thought of Mind as
anything else but material. Such an idea had not as yet dawned. But
implicit at least in his thought was the truth that in man's self must lie
the key to all problems. "Everyone," he said, "has a private insight of
his own."

When we turn from the intellectual work of the lonians to consider
their art, its precocity, if perhaps less striking, was yet full of promise;
and here, though again it was the peculiar genius of Greeks to transform
what they borrowed, their debt to the great civilizations of the East was
equally great. From the Mesopotamian peoples they drew many of their
decorative patterns; from Egypt almost certainly many details of their
architectural styles. Among the latter we may note their practice of
surrounding their temples with an external row of columns. The fluting
of the columns themselves was also an Egyptian device probably an
imitation of reeds tied round a pole. Similarly, the so-called "Ionic"
capital (resembling a pair of tightly-curled ram's horns) appears to be a
conventionalization of the papyrus-lily of the Nile. But the lonians gave
to such details a liveliness of form and delicacy of treatment which were
lacking in the more ponderous art of the East. The same was true of their
sculpture. Early Greek artists must often have gone to study their craft

42

in Egypt. But the smile they learnt to give to the mouths of their statues,
soon gained a new vivacity. Their handling of drapery was more elegant
than the severe traditions of Egyptian craftsmanship permitted. They
even began to differentiate between textures, treating wool in one way
and linen in another; and, generally speaking, new life was infused into
die old conventional types. It would be difficult to imagine the statue of
some seated Pharaoh rising up from his throne; but even in the early
Greek figures, however crude their anatomical detail, there lurks as it
were a latent capacity for movement.

In literature it is difficult to believe that the Greeks owed anything to
anyone. Whence Homer got his metre the rapid, colourful, yet im-
mensely dignified hexameter l cannot" even be guessed at. In the Iliad
and Odyssey, it appears suddenly full-grown and in its perfection; and
never again was it handled with such magical skill. In other forms of
Greek poetry to which lonians gave also an early lead the metre was
dictated by the rhythm of music and usually dance-music at that; for
singing and dancing habitually went together to the accompaniment of
the lyre. The examples of early lyric poetry we possess came not from
the Ionian mainland, but from neighbouring islands. Some were by
Anacreon the famous writer of drinking songs; but none can compare
with the work of Sappho the poetess of Lesbos. Of her love-lyrics only a
few fragments remain; but even from these we can safely say that no
more poignant utterance ofpassion has ever been known.

The moon hath sunk and the Pleiads,
and midnight has gone;

and the hour is passing, passing
and I lie alone. 2

Or this other, which begins:

It seems all heaven here to sit

beside you listening lover-wise
To your sweet voice and sweeter yet

your laughter's witcheries.

But O why beats my heart so wild?

one look at you and swift as thought,
I am as tongue-tied as a child;

words die in my throat.

If we possessed no more of Greek literature than the epics of Homer
and the few fragments of Sappho, these alone would be sufficient to prove

1 The Hexameter, with its alternations of the dactylic foot (tum-te-te) and the spondaic
foot (tum-tiim) suggests a marching rhythm accompanied by a drum. If this was its origin,
it is more likely that the Greeks invented it, for they were far better drilled than oriental
soldiery. They marched, and the others shuffled.

2 Translated by W. Headlam.

43

the unique genius of the Greek language for expressing emotion. There
is in It "the feeling of morning freshness and elemental power, the delight
which is to all other intellectual delights what youth is to all other joys.
Beside it Vergil's speech seems elaborate, and Dante's crabbed and
Shakespeare's barbarous. For Greek had all the merits of other tongues
without their accompanying defects. It had the monumental weight and
brevity of Latin without its rigid unmanageability; the copiousness and
flexibility of the German without its heavy commonness and guttural
superfluity; the pellucidity of the French without its jejuneness; the force
and reality of the English without its structureless comminution. 1 And
never, the writer adds, can there be such a language again.

But vivid as the life of Ionia was, and full of still richer promise, it was
none the less precarious; for her geographical position, to which she
owed so much of her culture and prosperity, exposed her also to attack
from at least one powerful neighbour. Lydia's growing strength had
already begun to menace her, when about the middle of the sixth century
the throne of this inland kingdom passed to a man of high ambition,
Croesus. Nothing comparable to his power had ever been known in the
vicinity of Greece. The splendour of his court and the riches of his
treasury made a deep impression even across the Aegean; so that his name
became a byword for fabulous wealth. Croesus seems to have admired
the Greek and done his best to conciliate them. He sent gifts to the shrines
of their chief religious centres. He welcomed them courteously to his
palace. But they feared him, and not without reason. Without provoca-
tion he fell on the Ionian city of Ephesus. In a desperate bid for divine
protection, the Ephesians (so Herodotus tells us) stretched a rope from
the town-wall to the shrine of their goddess Artemis the "Great Diana"
of the Biblical story. But Ephesus fell; and soon the whole coastline passed
under Croesus' sway. Miletus alone preferred to compromise with the
enemy and retailed some measure of her independence. Nevertheless,
the days of Ionia s greatness were numbered; and the leadership of Greek
civilization was presently to pass across the Aegean to 'their supposed
blood-cousins and their spiritual heirs the Athenian people.

1 Frederick Myers. Comminution signifies a "splitting-up" into isolated sentences.

44

CHAPTER IV
FROM OLIGARCHY TO DEMOCRACY

During the sixth century B.C., -while Sparta was engaged in extending
her hegemony over the Peloponnese and Ionian philosophers were
showing the world how to think, Athens, for her part, was entirely
absorbed in her own domestic problems. When the century dawned, she
was only just emerging from comparative obscurity. Her people were
still farmers in the main. She had as yet produced no great poet, no
scientists, not even any art of importance. Nevertheless, the spell of Ionia
had fallen over Attica. Luxurious Ionian habits were spreading among the
gentry. They had caught the fashion for curls, perfumed robes and
"grasshopper" brooches. Music and song enlivened their banquets. 1
They patronized craftsmen; and in their employment worked sculptors
who within a generation or two were to develop an art of rarely sensitive
beauty. 2 Among the Attic nobility, in short, there was already evidence
of a refined aristocratic taste; and even the ferment of Ionian ideas was
beginning to work in the minds of the more thoughtful. Athens, sure
enough, was on the move; and the next hundred years were to see in
her a rapid political and intellectual development which would end in
placing her head and shoulders above the rest of the Greek world.

In an agricultural community possession of the soil is always the one
sure passport to authority and esteem. Not so long ago, on however
modest a scale, this could be seen in our own English villages. There it
was the squire and leading farmers who counted for everything in the
community's life. From them would be drawn the members of the
Parish Council, who alone perhaps understood the "ins" and "outs'* of
local affairs how many "legs" each villager might graze on the common,
where turf might be cut and firewood gathered, and so forth. They, too,
would supply the wardens of the Parish Church; and, if there had been a
village tribunal, they would certainly have filled its bench. So it was also
in Ancient Greece, and not least in sixth century Attica. There the
hereditary aristocracy of landowners, having ousted the king nearly a
hundred years before, now ruled the roost completely. Their Council
exercised control over all public affairs, holding its sessions on the slopes
of the Areopagus the Mars Hill of St. Paul's famous sermon. From
1 See Plate II f page 51. * See Frontispiece.

45

among them, too, were drawn the officials or "archons," chosen, annually
by the Council to perform the executive duties previously discharged by
the king.

Needless to say, this close oligarchical clique stood for the vested interest
of their own selfish class. Nevertheless, as always in an agricultural com-
munity, respect for ancestral custom was still immensely strong; and the
aristocrats' right ro rule was scarcely as yet questioned. That right rested,
at bottom, on a twin foundation. Firstly, in war (though to a lesser degree
than in Homer's day) they still bore the brunt of the battle; for no one
but a man of substance could then afford the expense of a fully-armed
warrior's equipment, let alone the leisure to practise its use. Secondly, the
traditions of public administration were in their keeping. They alone
understood the proper procedure of religious ritual, and theirs, too, was
the accumulated experience of legal custom, inherited from many
generations of aristocratic judges.

But aristocracy was not now what it had been in the Heroic Period,
There had been a sad change for the worse; and the poet Hesiod who
wrote a century earlier in a neighbouring country, had already recorded
the change. The Golden Age is gone, he lamented. An Age of Iron has
set in. The nobles are no longer what Homer had called them the
"Shepherds of the people." Even as judges their honesty is not to be
trusted; they "swallow bribes." Old neighbourly habits, in fact, had
given place to avarice and oppression.

Since Hesiod's day there had been a further deterioration. The intro-
duction of money had helped the rich man and hit die poor man hard.
For money will keep where corn or oil will not; and so the big land-
owner, having accumulated his hoard, could now lend to the small
peasant when crops failed and rents could not be met. But for the debtor
there was danger in this. Repayment must now be in coin; and if bad
times lasted, he had no alternative but to pledge his land in security, or
if he did not own the land, his person. If still insolvent, the bankrupt was
liable to be sold into bondage. Slave-labour was increasing, imported
mostly from abroad; and this told equally against the peasant. The large
landowner, getting his work done for nothing, could undersell him and
crush him.

Such a condition of things was a scandal; and already there was danger-
ous unrest. In 621 a concession was made. The unwritten custom of the
courts was set down in "black and white." To the common folk this was
real gain; for now at least they knew where they stood; and sentences
were no longer dependent on the arbitrary interpretations of an aristocratic
judge. But the code, like the custom, was terribly severe "written in

blood, not ink," as a later writer remarked. The penalty for stealing even
a cabbage was death. This alone goes to show how bitter was the struggle
for existence. Feelings seldom run high, unless men are hungry, and they
were running liigh now. The increase of landless citizens was becoming a
danger to the community. Factions were forming; and wild demands
were put about that "debts should be cancelled," or that "all land should
be redistributed." Even in high places the voice of protest was raised.
"Avarice has laid hold on the leaders," wrote one would-be reformer,
"they enrich themselves unrighteously and heed not the holy foundations
of Justice."

Solon, the man who wrote these words, was himself an aristocrat, and
therein lay the hope of the future. Among Athenians, if anywhere, there
was a genius for political compromise; they were willing to listen to
reason and to pursue the ideal of moderation which the "prophets" so
sedulously preached. Solon was one of these "prophets," and happily he
did not preach in vain.

By the year 594 the danger of faction had become so threatening that a
"Peacemaker" was appointed with dictatorial powers and the choice fell
upon Solon. This remarkable man was a poet and philosopher as well as a
practical statesman. Though representing the high moral tradition of the
good old days, he was also a student of the new intellectualism that was
spreading across from Ionia, a friend of Thales, and much interested in
the "wisdom of Egypt." By the later Athenians he was regarded as a
founder of their political institutions. Posterity counted him among the
Seven Sages of Greece; and a modern historian has called him the greatest
economist whom the Mediterranean world produced before the founda-
tion of the Roman Principate.

With wild schemes of reform Solon would have nothing to do.
Beyond limiting the size of estates, he did not alter the system of land-
tenure; nor did he cancel all debts, though he put an end once and for all
to the enslavement of debtors. His measures, in fact, were not so much
remedial as constructive. Solon's father, though an aristocrat, was engaged
in trade; so he himself kiiew something about his country's economy,
and he saw that the solution of Athens' troubles lay in making her
prosperous. The problem of food came first. Attica was poor soil for
grain, and there was nothing to spare for export. This, therefore, Solon
forbade. The olive-tree, on the other hand, throve; indeed, it was the
national boast that Athena, the country's patron goddess, had planted it
there. So the export of oil he encouraged. But something more was
needed to ensure prosperity; and with astonishing prevision Solon under-
took a deliberate policy of industrial expansion. First he ordained that

47

any father failing to have his son taught a trade, should forego all claim
to his support in old age. Secondly, he sought to entice artisans from
abroad by guaranteeing them full rights of citizenship. These measures
soon bore fruit. Amongst other things there was a boom in the manu-
facture of pottery. Near the city were good beds of a reddish-brown cky,
and Attic potters and vase-painters developed great skill, outstripping in
time their rivals of Corinth, Rhodes and elsewhere. Their technique
underwent an interesting development. At first they washed in the
patterns and figures with black; but later they learnt to leave the terra-
cotta surface to represent flesh-tint and washed in the background with
black. 1 Jars of this ware were designed to contain oil or wine for exporta-
tion, and great quantities of them were sent overseas. But, though
serving a practical purpose, they were masterpieces of draughtsmanship,
and many of them now rank among the chief treasures of European
museums.

Solon's policy had one result which he himself can hardly have failed
to foresee. The population of the city rapidly increased and more
particularly those sections of it which were engaged in commerce or
crafts. It was this urban and industrial development which more than
anything else was to determine Athens' political future.

Solon's own political reforms were cautious almost to the point of
conservatism. He was too wise to imagine that the people were then and
there ripe for self-government. He may have foreseen who can tell?
that the new industrial and commercial classes would prove politically
conscious and politically ambitious; and in that sense at least he was
indeed the founder of Athenian Democracy, He is said to have instituted
a popular tribunal of appeal by which even the decisions of officials might
be overridden; but to what extent it really functioned is hard to say. The
Citizen Assembly he clearly meant to encourage; for he admitted to its
membership men of all classes, even the poorest; and he set up an elective
body of four hundred members to supervise and prepare its business.
But he left the supreme power, as before, in the hands of the Aristocratic
Council. The chief administrative offices, too, he confined to the large
proprietors. The net result therefore was that Athens remained an
oligarchy.

So long as the land-owning class controlled the policy of state and
filled all high executive posts, it could make little real difference what
views the popular Assembly might hold or which aristocratic candidate
they elected to office. Vested interests were in the long run bound to
prevail. There was, however, one change which Solon introduced and

1 Sec PlatcD, page 51.

which was perhaps the most significant feature of his whole legislation.
He made property and not birth, as heretofore, the qualification for high
office. By this he must clearly have meant to broaden the basis of the
administration. For merchants could now save money and buy land; and
so they too might quality for election. Thus through Solon's foresight
began the process familiar enough in English history whereby the
hereditary governing class was compelled to admit recruits from the
bourgeoisie.

His legislative task accomplished, Solon went off on his travels, and
deliberately left his countrymen to work out their own salvation without
his embarrassing presence. -But legislation is one thing, and its application
in practice is quite another. Athens was still gravely disturbed. Discontent
would take time to allay. The factional spirit had by no means vanished;
and there was even danger of revolution. No one knew this better than
Solon himself. He was accustomed, as we have said, to express his views
n poetry (indeed, men had not yet learnt to write prose), and among
the few fragments which survive from his writings there is one that
voiced his fears. "From the clouds," he said, "come snow and hail; and
lightning is followed by thunder ; so too by powerful men the city is
brought low and the people in its folly comes under the rule of a Despot."
Solon's fears were but too well justified.

Once a King of Persia, Herodotus relates, was caught in a storm at sea;
and on the skipper's advising him to lighten the ship, he called his courtiers
on deck and ordered them to jump overboard. On reaching land, how-
ever, he first decorated the skipper for saving his life, then chopped off
his head for causing the death of his courtiers. Such an act was inex-
pressibly shocking to the Greek mind, not so much because it was
morally wrong, but because it was politically irresponsible. Whoever
was armed with executive power, should always, it was felt, be answerable
for its use, and a Persian King was answerable to no one. Nevertheless,
from time to time in Greek history more especially in their turbulent
early period adventurers were found ready to seize control of the state
and govern as despots. Their rule, of course, could never have succeeded
without some popular backing; and usually, in point of fact, the masses
approved of it. In particular, the rising class of artisans and merchants
seem to have preferred it to the nobles' misgovernment. Autocracy, as it
proved, was no more than a passing phase; but it did much to stimulate
the growth and ambitions of the bourgeoisie, and thus, like the rule of
the Tudors in England, to pave the way for democratic advance.

49

To the nobility, however, whom the autocrats displaced and whom
they usually sought to destroy, the breach of constitutional practice
seemed unforgivable; and in later days, whatever may have been the
general view of them in their lifetime, there was a deliberate campaign
to blacken the memory of these political upstarts. The name applied to
them was "tyrants" a tide which significantly enough was borrowed
from monarchical Lydia; but tyrannical in our sense the autocrat seldom
was, except towards the nobles. Indeed, if only for popularity's sake, he
often did a great deal for the lower orders. Yet his rule was an offence
not to establish custom merely, but to the deep-rooted belief of the
Greeks that reason should govern human affairs. On that score alone the
adverse verdict of posterity was justified.

Elsewhere tyranny was no new phenomenon. It has already existed at
Corinth and Megara and, across the Aegean, at Miletus; and even in
Athens there had been an attempt at it which was narrowly foiled. Solon
must have witnessed this attempt in his youth; and his warning against its
repetition was timely. For soon after he had laid down his office and gone
abroad, faction broke out once more, and the opportunity for a coup d'etat
suggested itself to a certain Pisistratus. He was by birth an aristocrat, and
had distinguished himself in a recent war against Megara. The neigh-
bouring island of Salamis had been captured; and Pisistratus was popular.
The story of his coup is told by Herodotus; Collecting partisans from
the rough mountaineers "he planned an ingenious stratagem. First he
wounded himself and his mule-team, and then, driving into the market-
place, pretended that his enemies had made an attempt on his life, as he
was on his way to the country. This took the Athenians in, and a body-
guard of citizens was granted him, armed not with spears but with
wooden clubs; and, aided by this following, he seized the Acropolis/'

It was much in this way that the Reichstag fire was used by the Nazi
revolutionaries; indeed, diough their ideak were very different, it is
tempting to see a resemblance between the methods of the Fuehrer and
the tyrant. Pisistratus also understood how easily the masses may be
gulled; and, when presently driven out by the two other factions, he
resorted to a much stranger ruse. "There was an Athenian lady," Hero-
dotus continues," of remarkable beauty, and only three inches short of
six foot. This woman Pisistratus diessed up in full armour, then, mounting
her in a chariot and arranging her in a suitable pose, he drove her into the

PLATE I

The Acropolis at Athens from the west. The view is taken from the Pnyx Hill where the
Assembly was held. To the left lies modern Athens on the site of the ancient city.

50

PLATE I

PLATE II

town. Meanwhile he sent runners ahead to make proclamation that the
goddess Athena was doing honour to Pisistratus and conducting him
back to her own citadel; everyone should make ready to give him a
welcome." This rudimentary propaganda succeeded; and though again
ejected by his rivals, Pisistratus was not to be put off and after ten years
absence he again returned, this time for good.

The nobility, of course, suffered, and he drove many of them into
exile. But otherwise he showed himself a beneficent "tyrant." "He did
not," so Herodotus says, "abolish the existing magistracies or change
traditional usages, but ruled the city in accordance with the established
order of things and gave it good government." This showed a shrewd
judgment of the Athenian temper, and no doubt it made the regime more
palatable even to more prominent citizens Hitler himself did much the
same. But it was the common folk especially that Pisistratus sought to
please. Water was short in Athens; for though the population had grown,
no provision had been made for its increase. So he constructed conduits,
and near the foot of the Acropolis he built a handsome fountain, known
as The Nine Springs. Similarly, he conciliated the peasantry by providing
seeds and stock animals for their farms; and he distributed among the
landless the property he had confiscated from the exiled nobility.

Such schemes of social and economic betterment, though modest in
themselves, serve at least as some indication of Pisistratus' policy. But his
real contribution to the communal life went far deeper. So far as may be
judged from the evidence, he set out to make Athens what she eventually
was to become the cultural centre of Greece. Details are unhappily
scanty. But we know he attracted foreign poets to his court, among them
Simonides the well-known author of epitaphs. Later, under his son and
successor, Anacreon the writer of drinking songs also came over. Besides
this Pisistratus patronized artists in sculpture and painting. He improved
and adorned Athena's shrine on the Acropolis; and he planned, though
he did not complete, a magnificent temple to Olympian Zeus.

All this was something more than the mere gratification of the tyrant's
own aesthetic instincts. It was part of a policy which only a man of real
vision could have conceived. 1 Hitherto the appreciation of art and
literature had been limited to a very narrow circle. The Athenian gentry
were, in fact, the cultural heirs of the long-past Heroic age when the

1 For further consideration of its motive, see page 82.

PLATE n

Above: a scene from a Red-figure Vase, representing an Athenian noble of Cleisthenes' day,
reclining on his dinner-couch; a drinking-vessel beside him on a stool; a girl plays to him on
the pipe.
Below: scene of a chariot being got ready. (From a Black-figure vase.)

51

"sweet-voiced minstrels" of Homer's poems were attached to the palaces
and sang at the feasts of the great. Pisistratus' aim was to make available
to the many what had till now been the privilege of the few. In. other
words, he sought to democratize culture.

Here again our information is scanty, and two instances must suffice.
Drama in Greece was no sudden growth. Dances in which dialogue played
a part were akeady popular; but the performances took place in the
countryside. Pisistratus transferred them to the capital and made them a
central feature of one of the national festivals. There drama rapidly
developed, and within a generation or two the great tragedies of the Attic
stage were to be numbered among Athens* chief glories.

Another of the public festivals the Panathenaea, held in honour of the
city's patron goddess was also reorganized and elaborated. And here,
too, Pisistratus introduced a new feature. He arranged for professional
minstrels to give recitations of the Homeric poems. This popularization
of the great Ionian masterpieces was to have a profound influence on the
cultural life of the city; and her dramatists in particular came more and
more to rely on Homer for moral as well as artistic inspiration. Even
outside the Attica the effects of so enlightened a policy made themselves
felt; and other states tended to look increasingly to Athens for the spiritual
leadership of Greece.

To suppose that Pisistratus had any clear vision of unity in the Greek
world would be going too far; but some such instinct, however dim,
may have lain at the back of his mind. Culturally, at least, his populariza-
tion of the Homeric poems pointed in that direction. The Iliad and
Odyssey are no product of a narrow provincialism, they are significantly
catholic in outlook. The gods, as therein depicted, are something more
than mere local deities. They rule from Olympus over the entire Achaean
race. And one thing is certain, Pisistratus deliberately cultivated a friendly
relation with the lonians themselves. He is known to have been a bene-
factor of their shrine at Delos an island which was the traditional
religious centre of the Ionian race; and it is evident that in so doing he
had in mind the claim that Attica was the motherland from which they
sprang.

That Pisistratus also kept in close touch with fellow-tyrants in other
Greek cities, may have been no more than a precaution. Mutual support
between such men was common prudence. For tyranny was never too
firmly seated in the saddle, and it seldom lasted long. The regime founded
by a capable father was usually mishandled by an incompetent son, and
came to a swift end. On Pisistratus' death in 527, his two sons, Hipparchus
and Hippias succeeded to his power. Hipparchus was presently assassinated

52

by Harmodius and Aristogeiton two creatures of the court. In later days
they were honoured as national heroes; but such a claim was baseless.
Their action arose from a sordid personal grievance.

Meanwhile Hippias, unnerved by his own narrow escape, grew
suspicious and oppressive. His real danger, however, was from outside.
Exiled aristocrats were plotting to overthrow him; and they worked on
Sparta's habitual distrust of revolutionary regimes till she finally inter-
vened. Hippias was driven out, and the exiled nobles returned; but their
return had an unexpected sequel. One influential section of them espoused
the popular cause. Sparta again took alarm; but this time her interference
was unavailing; and under the direction of Cleisthenes, the new party's
leader, a thorough-going democratic constitution was established at
Athens.

3

Cleisthenes, like Solon, was a statesman of the first order; and he could
afford to be more adventurous. Pisistratus' regime had been an educative
experience, and in the nobles' absence the masses had become more
politically-minded. They now seemed ripe for self-government, and
Cleisthenes had the courage to give it them. But he had learnt the lesson
of the past hundred years. So long as partisan rivalry lasted, there could
be no political stability.

Now such partisanship had its roots in the old electoral system. Hitherto
the leading state officials had been chosen by the people voting in clans
or family groups (all MacDonalds, as one might say, would vote in one
group). So inevitably at.the polls each group tended to rally to its own
traditional leader the "head of the clan"; and here, then, automatically
was faction in the making. Cleisthenes determined to end this system. So
he reorganized the electoral constituencies. Instead of kinship he gave
them a territorial basis; and each constituency was so distributed '&s to
include a representative cross-section of the whole community city-
dwellers, country-peasants and mercantile folk at the port. By this
ingenious rearrangement the old clan grouping lost all political signifi-
cance (MacDonalds could no longer vote together), and thus no elected
official could count on an automatic partisan backing.

But Cleisthenes was taking no chances, and he introduced another
device to check dangerous political rivalries. Once a year a referendum
was to be taken whether any individual's presence in Athens was against
public interest. Whoever desired to see some individual banished, recorded
the name on a potsherd or "ostracon" (whence the referendum was
known as "Ostracism"); and if more than six thousand votes were cast
against any one man, he had to leave Athens for ten years,

53

To establish a pure democracy must at any period be a great act of
faith; but under the safeguards already described Cleisthenes was ready to
make the experiment. The old Aristocratic Council of the Areopagus
was, so to say, by-passed. Though not actually abolished, it fell gradually
into the background a survival of the past which, like our own House
of Lords, commanded respect but less and less real power. Ultimately
even its prestige vanished, and it ended as a High Court of Appeal in
cases of homicide.

The Assembly of citizens now became the sovereign voice in the State.
All public policy was determined by its vote. All officials were responsible
to it alone. No one could challenge or alter its decision. The People's
decree was final. The Council specially created by Solon to prepare the
Assembly's business and preside at its sessions, was retained by Cleisthenes.
But he raised its members from four hundred to five hundred and threw
open its membership to all classes. The method of its election, too, was
revised. A panel of candidates was chosen in the constituencies, and from
these the final Five Hundred were selected by lot. Bribery was thus made
impossible.

It would be hard to imagine a machinery of government more
genuinely democratic. Under our modern representative system, the
individual can only express his will directly at widely-spaced intervals,
and then only on the most general issues of policy. In day-to-day decisions
the Parliamentary member must be left to interpret the view of his
constituents. At Athens such decisions were made by the citizen himself.
In the Assembly's debates he could influence speakers by his applause or
dissent; he could, under certain circumstances, move his own motion 1 ;
he could make his own speech and, above all, he could cast his own vote.
But political education is bound to be a slow process; and the art of public
address is not learnt in a day. At first, therefore, it was inevitable that the
aristocratic spokesman, a practised hand in debate and with long experi-
ence behind him, should retain his traditional leadership. To all intents
and purposes he retained it for the best part of a century.

It is likely enough that Cleisthenes and his aristocratic supporters even
foresaw something of the sort. What they cannot have foreseen was the
peculiar circumstances under which their great experiment would have
to work. In the not far distant future, democratic Athens would be faced
with problems and responsibili ties of a wholly new order. First through
her leadership and example she was to save Greece from national extinc-
tion by Persia. Then in the consolidation of this victory she endeavoured

1 Some safeguards undoubtedly existed against irresponsible motions. In Aristophanes*
parody of an Ecclesia (quoted on page 88) a private citizen is restrained from initiating a
discussion on peace. Decrees were normally proposed by some official.

54

to unite a part at least of the Greek-speaking world. Voluntary union
through no very great fault of her own proved a failure; and she thus
found herself committed to imposing unity by force. A democracy is
not ideally adapted to the exercise of imperial rule: certainly not a
young democracy like Athens; and the wonder is not that she
ultimately failed to solve its problems, but rather that she succeeded as
well as she did.

55

CHAPTER V
UNITY OR ANMHILATION

nphere was so much that was admirable in the life of the Greek City
JL States the healthy diversity of their institutions, the vitality of their
artistic and intellectual growth, the strong individuality of their leaders,
and above all the many-sided activities and burning enthusiasms of their
citizens that it is tragic to contemplate the price they had to pay for the
political independence from which in the last resort these manyjvirtues
sprang! For, unless they were prepared to sacrifice their separatist instincts
and merge in some sort of political union, nothing could be more certain"
than that sooner or later they would be overwhelmed piece-meal ty"
some foreign power. Already, as we have seen, Ionia had fallen to LycHaT*
and now at the very moment when Cleisthenes was launching his great "
experiment, a far more serious threat was looming up in the East. The
power of Persia would have carried all before it, had not the Greeks at
the moment of crisis sunk their differences and formed a common front.
But the crisis over, they fell apart once more into the two traditional
groups, Sparta dominating the Peloponnese, and Athens dominating the
Ionian and other Aegean states. The antagonism between them deepened;
and eventually the two groups were to clash in a war so devastating that
Greece never properly recovered her strength: till her weakness and
continued disunity made her an easy prey to the ambitions of a
Macedonian King.

Yet, incurable separatists as they were, the Greeks did not by any
means kck a sense of racial brotherhood. Hellas the name by which
they themselves always called their country meant something much
more to them than a mere geographical expression. They were all
Hellenes at heart; and go where they might to settle north to the Black
Sea or south to Libya, to Cyprus at one end of the Mediterranean or
Marseilles at the other Hellenes they obstinately remained; and though
in early times there may have been some intermarriage with the sur-
rounding natives, these settlers never allowed themselves to be absorbed.
In the Roman epoch, after seven hundred years of history, the Greek
character of Marseilles was still the boast of its inhabitants.

of this racial pride is not so eajsy t

56

Religion certainly played some part in it. Homer, as we saw, had en-
oJuraged the belief that the gods of Olympus were gods of the whole
race. Local shrines, of course, they had; but the more important of these
were held in universal reverence and pilgrims visited them from all over
Greece.

Two such religious centres enjoyed a special pre-eminence; and each
in ib way helped much to foster the sense of Hellenic unity. One was
Delphi, a beautiful spot in a high mountain valley looking southward
over the waters of the Corinthian Gulf. Here was situated the famous
shrine and sacred precinct of the god Phoebus Apollo and, in close con-
nection with the shrine, his still more famous oracle. Most early peoples
have claimed by some means or other to receive direct communication
from the deity; did not Saul, King of Israel^pav a visit of enquiry to the
witch ^t Jindpr? And the Greds^el^^liLftJL^
Apollo spoke through the mouth of a prophetess. This woman was
known as J'the Pydb^Tr^drwlien one holder of /fe Uflr Ai*A 3nftth < * r
succeeded her. In^a fit orconyulsions mciucedjio^one knows how-H^ie
gave vent to thc^oracular 'response: and no matter what question was
asked tfiere was always an answer., Some <^me with tfiflfr personal
problems: WK^ : ^^~^m^c^SSslWh3Lt career should a son pursue?
States.Jtoo, sent to scekf 4vJr* nr> T^^lte-Q^PP^y- There was.end(ejs_
variety. More often than not the response was couched in a distinctly
'ofyptic "style, sometimes susceptible of a double interpretation. One
monarch, for instance, was told that, if he crossed a certain river, he would
destroy a great empire, and optimistically crossing it, he destroyed his
own.JThere was aiiodber^suspicious feature about the worldng qf the,
oracle. It always reached the enquirer neatly composed inlhcxamcter
verse. This suggests that the priests had some latitude inj^e interpretation
of "the Pythia's ravings. They seem, too, to have been well informed
about the affairs of the outside world, and possibly they even. jelie4 on
some Knd of secret service JDurihg the epoch of colonization they were
able to direct enquiries to suitable fields for settlement. One man, who
had come to ask about his stammer, was irrelevendy told to go and
colonize Lybia advice which he eventually took, and with surprising
success.

In any case, whether by luck or intelligence, the Delphic oracle gained
a great reputation. Foreigners came to consult it, Croesus of Lydia among
them. Pj^^j^gQ]^ ^A. *ik T j ndaBLflowed in L frog, ftp gracefukjjid
aa enonnpi^tr^gjg&^^ was the

influence of the oracle confined to purely secular affairs. The voice of
Apollo joined with that of die "prophets" in urging the ideals of Reason-

57

ableness and Moderation. On the outside of his temple were exhibited
two mottos, one die "Meden agin" or "Nothing in excess" which we
quoted above; the other "Gnothi seauton" or "know thyself" as who
should say "Do not overreach yourself: recognize your BmkaEons?*
Whatever hocus-pocus went on behind the scenes at the PythiaYseance,
the oracle undeniably preached goodjjggse md- faA what '

promote order and Wm^

The otherjffijigious centre, rivalling Delphi in popularity, was ; Otpipia.
It layup a river valley * near the westjroast of the PeloponnesefHere
stoodlhe temple and precinct oT (i)Tympian Zeus, wKere a'tTbaryearfy
intervals were held the famous Games. These, too, were religious in
drigin~a survival from some early ritual of human sacrifice which a
kindlier age had commuted to ordeal by trial of strength. The opening
day was devoted to ceremonial in front of the Temple; and during the
period of the festival a Sacred Truce was proclaimed; and throughout
Greece all wars were interrupted. To the games came not athletes merely,
but every sort of person who had goods to barter or skill to exhibit;
hucksters, conjurers, acrobats, professional lecturers, and even authors of
note; Herodotus himself is said to have given a public reading of his
history there. It was a regular World's Fair, and from all over the Hellenic
World especially from Sicily and Southern Italy pilgrims and sight-
seers poured in. The contests were very varied, and included chariot-
races and a competition for heralds. But to describe the events'iii detail
would be superfluous in an age which has seen their revival. A few points,
however, deserve mention.

First the competitors stripped naked, as was usual in all physical
cxerciserancT, though 'women were excluded, the ban was simply a
survival of an ancient taboo and not due to any sense offiproprieffij TEe
Greeks were perfectly frank and unashamed about the humari body.
Many of the events were intended to be a test of endurance even more
feab. of actual skill. Races Were run in thick sand; and in one the com-
petitors ran in soldier's equipment. Special teats might be remembered;
TDUC, where there were no stop-watches, records could be no object.
Extraordinary toughness was shown; and in the "all-in wrestling" men
were Biowii lu-&ulferteatir5om strangulation rather than admit defeat.
^Jkcondly, in the palmy days of 1 the Games competitors were sOT
amateurs, for a long period the Spartans not unnaturally swept the
1 See Plate V, page 62.

PLATE in
Scene of ruins at Delphi under an olive-tree with typical mountain scenery beyond.

58

PLATE III

PLATE IV

>~

board; and it was not till a fashion for specialized training set in that
their supremacy was challenged, hven tnen they refused to follow the
fashion, preferring an all-round physical development. The professional
aflhkte (fid tint rr^lce himself beloved. His bra^art-talk and greedy
appetite were thought out of taste "onejsf the wQrW nMrn^^^^n^jtn
Atheman playwright called him. Nevertheless, a^ctor inthe Games was

population, andjcwar tfcft with tree meals for life at the public expense.

Tasdy, it should be said that before the Games a careful scrutiny was
held into the entrants' parentage and antecedents. It was useless for a half-
caste to apply. The competitions were for Greeks and Greeks alone. So
it was an exclusive gathering, yet none the worse tor that. Here tor once
in a way at least, all Greeks could meet together as a harmonious family
and in conscious pride of their common brotherhood.

Such exclusiveness was a gradual growth. There is no hint of it among
tie Homeric warriors; there was nothing to choose between Achaean or
Trojan. But the kter Greeks, though great travellers and good mixers,
developed a strong sense of racial superiority. The word "barbarian," by
which all non-Hellenes were known, had more than a tinge of contempt
in it. Most of all was this felt for the soft luxurious Oriental; and dramatists
could always make a good hit by holding him up to ridicule. After the
defeat of the Persian invasion the feeling seems to have grown; and the
Greeks painted an exaggerated and not wholly justified picture of the
cowardice and feeble spirit of their enemy. Some elements of the invading
host were no doubt unreliable, and its training and equipment no match
for the heavy-armed Greek warrior. But the Persian regiments at least
were tough fighters, and racially they belonged to the same Aryan stock
as the Greeks. It was to be a stern bitter struggle, and for a while the
future of European civilization hung in the balance.

During the twelfth and the five succeeding centuries the cruel military
domination of Assyria had lain heavily over Mesopotamia, About 600 B.C.,
however, the empire of the Ninevite kings went to pieces, and its territory
was divided between Babylon and Media. Among the dependencies of
the latter was the mountainous district of Persia, and fifty years later some
change of dynasty set a Persian prince on die Median throne. His name
was Cyrus. He was a strong ambitious character; and from SusaTthenew

~ PLATE IV ~~

A drawing on a vase: a mythological scene illustrating a bout of all-in wrestling known as
the Pancration and practised at the Olympic Games.

59

capital, he began a career of conquest which was to carry his realm to the
shores of the Aegean. First he attacked and annexed Babylon. Next he
entered Asia Minor, overwhelmed the Lydian army, captured Sardis and
made Croesus a prisoner. The fate of the Ionian Greeks followed swiftly.
They were placed under the rule of "quisling" tyrants supervised by a
Persian Satrap who was quartered at Sardis.

Cambyses, Cyrus' son and successor, followed in his father's footsteps
and added Egypt to the Empire. On his death the crown passed to Darius,
a man of great energy and a njastflC-of organization. The empire was now
divided among some twenty* satraps.fGreat trunk roads were built, one
from Susa to Sardis, a distance wluch by the aid of a courier system could
be covered in a week. It is a commonplace of history that improved com-
munications upset the balance of world affairs; and Europe was now
brought within the orbit of Persian ambitions. In Ji^fiarius crossedthe
Bosphorus^ intending .apparently .t<? conquer^ the Danube haaj^JThe
expedition proved a fiasco and he narrowly escaped destruction by the
wild Scythian gibesmen.

Persian prestige was badly shaken; and in 499 the lonians, restive under
alien rule, rebelled. They put up a pludcy fight and even marched inland
and burnt Sardis. But the odds were too great, and in 494 they were-
crushed. Miletus was sacked and its inhabitants slaughtered.
"But the most significant part of the story has still to be told.^The
the fonian Revolt had appealed for help to European;

*+. J J j%n + **.<> TT o//afv-k i'N+%ivi'JyN+-p "ttTA^A /niTrt/4/*/4 \Af*-n e Trfeirvri

Greece. There, odd as it may seem, opinions were divided. Men's visiorr
wassSort; only a few years before Lydia had been the closest and seemed
the most dangerous enemy, so that her overthrow by Persia had been
hailed with relief. As yet little was known of the new power which had
appeared out of the East; and few felt inclined to take up the cudgels
against it. Cleisthenes himself had favoured a policy of appeasement, even
hoping that Persia might prove a useful ally against Sparta. One Greek
island lying close off the Peloponnese was actually ready to place herself
under Persian protection.

So when the Ionian envoy, seeking military aid for the revolt, had
arrived in Greece, his prospects were not promising. At Sparta he met
with a cool reception. "He had brought with him," says Herodotus,
"a bronze tablet on which the whole circuit of the earth was inscribed
with all its seas and rivers," and, pointing with his finger, he explained
the geographical position of Lydia and the rest. "How many days' march
is it from the sea to Susa," the Spartan King presently asked. "Three
, months" was the unguarded reply. "Milesian stranger," said the king,
X*quit Sparta by sunset."

60

Athens, however, was by now awake to the peril from Persia. She had
strong ties of sentiment with Ionia and agreed to send twenty ships to
aid the revolt. Then came the news of Miletus' destruction. The dismay
at Athens was terrible. When next year a dramatist made the catastrophe
the subject of a play, the whole audience burst into tears, and the poet
was heavily fined for his tactless reminder.

3

"The sending of those twenty ships," says Herodotus, "was the
beginning of trouble to both barbarians and Greeks/' For Darius was set
on revenge. In 490 he sent ^^^Hitti^ruacross the Aeg
found hereelFTioj^ alr^ Th* Spartans. stiUJaliad

tcTthe reality of the danger, deliberately dallied; and when at lasttheir
troops came, they arrived too late. Atriens EacI in. tfic : meanwEHeTouglit
and' won jgle-ltan3e3r' *"""*'

TThe Persians'" strategy was ingenious. They had_frj-fmpV with thorn
Pisistratus' son Hi^asTTIiy^^cj^ y^ar^an exile. This man still had
His jriencts In Athens; and a section of the populace, rememBenngT5lrpast
^^^^^i^^^^^^'^^^^^^^^^ So when the Persians
dSeniBarked in north-east Attica, the government : were caught in~a
SlcmrnaT To send outjheir fighting men"aSTleave tie capital at^the
merq^of the traitors seemed a big risk; but tKifTS?er,"SMiSad^,^
aQStqcrat of the old school, insiste J"on t^^g,!^!^ led the army*acfoss
and stationed it on tlie"moiiiitain-slope overlooking the Pl^^FMaraffiorr
wEere"the enemy were encamped by the seashore Below.^So^ffings
remained for some days. The next move was for die Persians.

Herodotus' account of what followed is far from explicit; and some

BufwEat

been this. One morning the Persian cavalry was seen to re-embark and sail
away southward. They had only to round the tip of the Attic peninsula
to ^easb^^e'c^r^eaT Athens; and'if their main forces meanwhile
tqokjie overland route to the city, it would be caught upon two sides.
That thettaitors L within were in readiness to open the gates, seemed only
toojDrobaHe- indeed, the story was that a shield flashed on the hills that
same afternoon had ^ been their prearranged signal. So jfor the Athenian
afmyTm ! the mountain-islop^ it was now or never." They moved'down
and "charged," so Herodotus says, "at the double, the first Greeks to my*
Siowledger^wfeo introduced such " tactics." There ~ was hsird-fought
stn^gle, and then they drove the Persians back into die sea. But there
was^still no time to be lost. Weary as"Ttej^rTwith the day's fighting,
they Inarched back to Athetis." They ITnved in the

61

the sight of them the Persian fleet, already in the offing, turned on its

_

The- victory of Marathon was a signal triumph for the Athenian
aristocrats and their great leader Miltiades. For it had been the popular
party or a section of it at least who had been prepared to turn traitor
and receive Hippias back. Happily their miscalculation provoked no
change in the regime, and this, as it proved, was to save not only Athens,
but Greece. For they had not done with Persia yet; and aptly to the
moment a democrat leader was now to the fore who appears tojiaye_
Irrmwn it This leader w^Fhemistocles, a type of statesman nojt'&therto
known, and the first fruit, as it were, of the new democratic regime. He
was the son of a bourgeois merchant, and his father had not given him
the old-fashioned aristocratic schooling. His music normally the accom-
plishment of a gentleman had been entirely neglected; he could not
even play the harp. Instead, he had studied under teachers of the new-
fangled art of Rhetoric. This had sharpened his wits. He was adaptable,
imaginative, and possessed of an extraordinary faculty for quick decisions
Many stories were^told of his brilliant retorts and ingenious strategems;
and, if there was any truth in such tales, he does not seem to have been
much troubled by^5CfJ5pIes. ^

^Themistocles' ujrorngSig' had made him sea-minded in a way that his
aristocratuT (JUiiloiaip 01 tui L J> Were 110 1 ; and^ (aTseemT certain) he foresaw
'in{\fknrVe>T<(faA. ^F^^*?t .fey e known that. Alem r QHly^ hope ^of
salvation ky^in sea-power. To convince his countrymen of this was
another matter^ But an excuse""ibT lRreasirig the sizF^oTTiKe fleet was
opgortun^iv^grovidcci. Ajwar was in progress ags^t WejSS^oSmg
island Aegina, and it was going none tttaTfltflTECT^ have

it, a rich vein of ore had recently been struck in the Attic silver mines "at
Laureum. T^eirSFocIes had fiis way and the wuidfaTI- was deYQts3JJtEe
construc^'ri'oTtwd Hundred new galleys. Previous to dais he had initiated

"iSpEeme for making a new harbour. The sandy bay of Phalerum, hitherto

'used, was no protection against storms; but at Piraeus, some six miles

^iom^the city, was a rock-bound inlet which offered far better accom-
modation. This Themistocles planned to convert into a serviceable road-

-stebd. But he had not the opportunity of completing it; for even his other

precautions were taken barely in time (483).

<sDarius in the jneantime had died; but Xerxes, his successor on the

-n '^ Sv --ir*^--~jW.^^ C-X*%/A*V1A-~-<^^'^

Persian throne, had oeSaecTto carry out his Father s intention and renew

' S"^~^ -~~ /***~

PLATE V
The valky of the River Alpheus in which the ruins of Olympia are situated.

62

PLATE V

PLATE VI

the attack on Greece. Preparations were made on a gigantic scale. This
was to be no mere raid across the Aegean, but a highly-organized expedi-
tion of the combined fleets and armies of the Empire. The strategic plan
f was to follow the coast-line round the Northern Aegean and so descend
upon Greece, fleet and army moving side by side. The Dardanelles was
bridged in advance with pontoons, and a ship-canal was even dug
through the peninsula of Mt. Athos one of the three finger-like pro-
montories in the north-west corner of the Aegean off which an earlier
expedition had foundered through storms. A convoy of ships was to
help in provisioning the huge land army put down by Herodotus at
1,700,000 men, but unlikely to have numbered more than a quarter of
a million. The fleets of Phoenicia were accompanied by Ionian vessels
pressed into service, and the whole constituted a formidable
armada. _ __

^ When in 480 this vast assemblage of men ancfsEips began to move,
'panic seized Greece. The northern states of Bceotia and Thessaly deter-
mined on a policy of appeasement. Even the Delphic Oracle doubted
and warned the Athenians of impending doom:

Wretches why sit ye here? Fly, fly to the ends of creation!

Nay, not alone shall ye suffer; fufl many a town shall be levelled;

Many a shrine of the gods will he give to fiery destruction

Get ye away from the Temple and brood on the doom that awaits you* \ ?

The prestige of Apollo never recovered after this disastrous failure of
nerve. Happily, however^ the Spartar^ ^n^jtann^ inH, T . if janly r fr>
secure the invaluable services of the Athenian fleekdroVlfirl on act attemgt
to''EoldJ5qrdiernGreece.

'^^^^^th^STl^pSr tip of the island offiftnefl tftft flflftiinfftinjy nf Aft

mainland come down close to the sea. The narrow passage left betwee^,

' "" ? '

cHHs and water was knowii as' tKc"pass" ? or lEef faJ^ffiftK ' a nf l ^? rg
^ ^Leoniclas elected to make Bis stand. He had brought with

r

him three fiimcIr r eir'Spafcan r warriors, a contingent of loyal Helots, and
some forces drawn from the more reliable northern states. His position
could not be by-passed except by an inland track through the hills, which
he took steps to secure. The holding of the pass was therefore by no means
a forlorn venture. The Greekjgrr nr

With head covered by vizored helmet, body andmigns by snicicTahd

1 Quoted from Rawlinson's "Herodotus."

PLATE VI
Above: a heavy-armed warrior or hoplitc, showing crested helmet, cuirass, greaves, shield

and spear. (See also drawing pn page 172.)

Below: portrait of a typical Greek of the fifth century, in his battle armour; perhaps the most
life-like representation of the common man which has come down to us.

63

cuirass, and lower legs by greaves, hcjvvas almost ^invulnerable from in
front. In the narrow pass thcT?r5ians were at a disadvantage. Their
"nSmbers could not tell and of their two most dreaded arms the cavalry
and the archers, one could not operate and the others' volley could make
little impression on their well-armed opponent. The story of the battle
i. (?Ji,an abbreviated fonn) froni ^ jjgro^tus^account written
~"'

,

a generation kter.

*"*"* First Xerxes sent forward a mounted scout to find out what the Greeks
were doing and how many they were. The man found the Spartans
posted in front of their encampment, some engaged in athletic exercises,
others in combing their long hair; and his report sorely puzzled the King;
for the simple truth never struck him that they were preparing to do or
die like heroes. So he let four days go by, in die hope that they would
decamp. But on the fifth he decided they were a set of obstinate fools
and sent forward the Medes with orders to capture them and bring them
to his presence alive. The attack was pressed home, but with terriblg,
lo&es; and what was clear to everyone else, at length dawned on the
King; Ins figfatnio;-men y^re TH 1TT>er ous T but the warriors among them
rare. Finally the Persian Corps, blown jis^tj^ Imm6rtals,"were ordered
up in' the Medes 7 place. TheseTit was ^thought, would" soon^end ' the-
business. But they : n^tReiTmrn proved na more successIuXTJeirJ^ices
were shorter than the Greeks, and fighting .on. a. narrow front they could
not deploy ^ffieu^uTribeis.J^e^

bafttey too" ste>wccT the superiority of their_tactics. Often they would
feign! ftight, and then, when the noisy, yellinffrabfleguf sued, they would

d****""*! 1 **^.^ 1 1 --- 1 - "P""* 1 ' ****n' ' **' '' __,/'"*'-* . - . ." ."" "<'"

swing 'reUiid-md slaughter thcnTin heaps. Three times, it is saicLJjEXS

.o ,-. "V vj-t '*" """" T^v--- >.:** *^~ -H - j "-*-~< *~-**"
leapt

'Next day the assault was resumed; but, faring no better, the Persians
again retired. In this predicament the King was approached by a certain
Ephialtes, a native of the locality, but now in exile. He revealed the
existence of the track through the mountains leading to the rear of the
Greek position. The Persian Corps under Hydarnes was entrusted with
the mission. They set out about the time of the lighting of lamps, and,
marching all night, found themselves at dawn near the top of their climb.
Here Leonidas had posted a thousand Phocians; but they were at first
unaware that anyone was approaching. The air, however, was very still;
and the Persians* feet, tramping through the leaves, made a rustling. This
awoke the Phocians to their peril, and they rushed to arms; but under
the hail of arrows fell back to the crest of the mountain, meaning to sell
their lives dearly. But the Persians passed on and dropped swiftly down
.towards the coast.

64

'When scouts ran in with the news, the Greeks held a council of war.
Many elected to march off home; but the rest made up their mind to
stand by Leonidas to the end. Hitherto all the fighting had been done in
the_narrowek pa# of the gapj^EuTnow^seeing dieatK TieSFTthe^Greefes^
advanced to the point where tfie pass'opens out. Here terrible havoc was
wrought on the barbarian host. Their captains kept urging them forward

^

more were trampleQun3eI1butr^31tio^ccount was takenjbf the dyingT"
When their speffi^ere~sfilvere3r^e Greeks went to work witR theCT
swords. And here Leonidas fell fighting bravely.

'Presently came tidings that Ephialtes' party was approaching. Then
the Greeks fell back again to the narrow part of the pass, and formed a
compact body on a hillock. Here they fought on with swords, if swords
were left them; if not, with hands and teeth; till finally they were over-
whelmed by the shower of missiles.

'So died the Spartans and their remaining allies, and over the Spartan
grave was set this inscription: 1

Go, way-farer, bear news to Sparta's town
that here, their bidding done, we laid us down.'

Northern Greece was now lost. Athens was speedily evacuated; and
all the women and children were ferried over to neighbouring islands.
Only a few fanatics stayed behind to make a brave but futile stand on the
Acropolis. To save the Peloponnese seemed the one remaining hope.
The fortification of the Corinthian isthmus had already begun, and
hurried efforts were made to complete it.

Meanwhile the Greek fleet, though successful in holding the Euboean
narrows, had no choice but to retire in conformity with the strategic
situation. It took up its station at the island of Salamis; but scarcely had
it done so, when the Persian fleet arrived and anchored near the Piraeus
opposite.

Among the Greek captains, two views now prevailed. The Pelopon-
nesians were for retiring to the Isthmus and there linking up with the
land forces. This course, however, would have committed them to an
engagement in open water, where with their inferior numbers they were
bound to be outflanked. Themistodes took the opposite view. The best
hope, as he saw it, was to lure the Persians into the narrows between
Salamis and the mainland, where numbers could not tell. There was a
heated debate, in which he actually threatened to withdraw the Athenian
fleet altogether and sail off to Italy. By this threat he carried the day, and
the Greeks remained at Salamis.

1 By Simonides.

65

The Persians behaved as Themistocles had foreseen. They entered the
narrows. Cramped for space, their vanguard alone was able to deploy;
and the remaining ships, crowding in on its rear, created indescribable
confusion. The nimbler Greek vessels made rings round their disordered
opponents, and by the end of the day there was little left of the great
Persian armada, Xerxes himself had been watching, seated in his throne
on "the rocky brow which looks o'er seaborn Salamis." What he had
seen decided him. He was terrified of a fresh revolt in his rear and departed
at once for Asia Minor. But he left the Persian land army behind him
with orders to withdraw into winter quarters in Thessaly.

This was clear evidence that the permanent occupation of the northern
half of the country was still in contemplation; and the Greeks were now
well alive to their danger. With spring they decided to take the offensive.
All, for once, pooled their military resources; and under Spartan leader-
ship a formidable army marched north from the Isthmus. The enemy, too,
had moved down to meet them; and at Plataea, on the frontier between
Attica and Bceotia, a decisive battle was fought. Here, at least, the Persians
gave proof of their soldierly qualities. During the opening stages of the
campaign, in which for many days both sides manoeuvred for position,
their redoubtable cavalry severely harassed the Greeks; and in the pitched
battle that followed, their archers, posted behind a barricade of wicker
shields, put up a stiff fight. But the Greeks won, and never again was a
Persian army to set foot in Europe.

Much, however, remained to be done. There were Persian garrisons to
be cleared out of Thrace; and there was Ionia to liberate. This last was
achieved by a crowning success won at sea off Cape Mycale near Samos.
In the course of the battle the Ionian naval contingents, hitherto
timorously loyal to their Persian masters, deserted to the Greek side.

Victory was now complete; but in die aftermath of victory unity was
lost. Sparta, who wid^her^^^onjlic Helots shrank from risking
hgrjforces far fromTiomeV gradually "v^diEevirirdm^SFailiance; and her
JtebponuesiG^^

mature. There couIcTBeT no 'lasting guarantee against renewed Persian
aggression, unless an adequate fleet were kept in. being. For this Athens
alone would scarcely have the resources. Shipbuilding was expensive, and
Attica was not a rich country. What was needed was a co-operative effort
of all maritime states the Eubceah aties, the ftk>nies of the Northern
Aegean^e^ islanders, m^^jtex^is aud othet Greeks of Asia Minorr-
So^aX^ue"was fomecT All rnembers.ojf it were to contribute according
to, itHcir, means. Athens, of course, contributed 'die bulk of the fleet.
Others, notably the three large islands/ restes;-^his^anarSanios, conX

66

tributed ships too. The rest paid an annual quota of money. The collection
of the latter was entrusted to the Stewards of the League; and the League
Treasury was kept on the islanpl &f Delos, the old religious centre of the
Ionian Greeks. Here, too, met fo& delegates sent by League members to
discuss common policy. Thus the constitutional arrangements were
democratic enough; but from the fiit, as was inevitable, Athens took
the lead; and it was primarily to her efforts and in particular to the
forceful commandership of Cimon the son of Miltiades that the League's
military successes were due.

For Persia was not yet done with. The loss of Ionia still rankled and
she had by no means abandoned hope of its recovery. In 466, it became
known that the Phoenician fleet accompanied by a land army was moving
towards the Aegean. It had got more than half-way along the southern
coast of Asia Minor before the Greeks under Cimon encountered it. The
battle was fought near the mouth of the River Eurymedon. The Persians*
fleet was first overwhelmed and driven into the estuary; Cimon then
disembarked his army and destroyed their forces on land.

Though formal peace was not declared for a dozen years or more, two
genSraBonT'were to" pass before'. Persia sought to meddle again inTthe
affairs of the Greeks. Jfo'wTioni in the last resort their salvation w^^e*
'^w^7:onffoversIaTeven in antiquity. Some gave tfie "cre"3it"to Sparta,
whose leadership had clinched the dedsive yioory of ^ktaea; others,
perhaps with more justification, to Athens "wEos rSoTiite jjptfcyicr
Salamis had first turned the'ticle. But tfae^ final explanation of the miracle ,
lay in the fact that the Greeks Had tor once sunk their differences ^
united in, defence of their ^ciommonlfreedom. TteTx^e3y ^was
lessons of the war were so quickly forgottenTSTtEe peace* .

CHAPTER VI
THE AGE OF PERICLES

i. A NEW CHAPTER

'""The magnitude of their double triumph over the greatest known
-L military power was not lost on the Athenians. Long after, their elders
prated about the "Marathon-heroes," and Salamis became a part of every
orator's stock-in-trade. As a people they felt themselves suddenly to be
"on the top of the world," and from this in a large measure sprang the
reckless confidence and boundless energy which now carried diem
forward to the greatest phase of their history. Athens' heyday lasted less
than eighty years, and the number of her adult male citizens scarcely
exceeded fifty thousand. Yet this handful of men attempted more and
achieved more in a wider variety of fields than any nation great or small
has ever attempted or achieved in a similar space of time.

After Salamis, clearly, things could never be quite the same again;
first the mass-evacuation, in itself a great leveller, a breaker-up of tradi-
tions as well as of homes, and then the victory in which every man equally
had played a part, the rower at his bench and the man-at-arms on deck,
no less than ship's captain or the admiral himself. The twofold experience
was bound to breed a sense of social and political equality. The tide of
Athenian democracy now set in at full flood; and more and more through
the coming years the People's will determined the city's policy.

The social advance was scarcely less striking. The whole temper of
Athens was changed. Among a society of merchants and craftsmen and
shopkeepers there was little room for the beautiful but exotic culture of
the pre-war gentry with their Ionian robes and oriental perfumes and
"grasshopper" brooches. Its gay insouciance was replaced by a very
different spirit, the spirit of men who had been and still were at close
grips with life, purposeful, serious-minded, at times almost morose. The
transformation is well reflected by the art of the two periods. In the
reconstructed foundations of the Acropolis wall, where after the Persian
sack they had been thrown likeT so much rubble, many pre-war statues
have been unearthed lovely female figures, with dresses falling in dainty
folds and picked out with brightly-coloured patterns, and with a charm-
ing, if highly conventionalized, smile on their delicate faces. To pass from
these to the austere sublimity of the Parthenon statuary is like passing

68

from the gay fantasies of Watteau to Millet's serious canvasses, or from
the poignant sweetness of Mozart to the solemnities of Beethoven.

And the Athenians had need to be purposeful. On their home-coming
after Salamis there was much to be done. They had their ruined houses
to restore. At Piraeus there was the rock-harbour planned by Themistocles
to complete; and, as a permanent safeguard of their communications with
the port, they proceeded a little later to build a pair of Long Walls linking
it with the city. Yet these tasks absorbed but a part of the people's energy.
The war had shaken Athens out of herself; it had brought her more into
contact with the rest of the world. During the campaigns for the liberation
of the Aegean krge numbers of her citizens had seen service in Thrace,
Ionia, and even further East. Familiarity with other people's habits and
with more luxurious standards of life could not fail to leave its impression;
and many must have come home with their heads full of new commercial
ambitions. The main fields of their enterprise lay, of course, in the
directions above mentioned; but even these did not satisfy them. They
began to push their voyages round the Peloponnese and across the
Adriatic where in Sicily and South Italy hitherto Corinth's special
preserve great openings were awaiting diem. Friendly relations were
established with Corcyra on this westerly trade-route, to be followed by
alliances with several Sicilian towns; and meanwhile traffic in oil and
wine previously carried on others states' vessels could now be carried
more advantageously on their own.

Thus a new chapter was begun in Athens' economic development, a
continuation no doubt of earlier tendencies, but on a much vaster scale.
Both city and port became hives of industry. Foreigners and slaves were
increasingly employed on production, and citizens thus left free for the
business of export. But, as die number of the inhabitants grew, so too did
their needs; and commercial expansion became a necessity of the city's
very existence. Geography favoured her. Economically the Mediter-
ranean world had become since the war a more closely-knit unit; and
Athens stood more or less at its centre. So into the Piraeus, as a comic-poet
could boast, goods flowed from every quarter "hides from Gyrene,
ivory from Libya, meat from Italy, pork and cheese from Syracuse, rugs
and cushions from Carthage, scents from the East," and to these we may
add corn from the Black Sea and Egypt, and metalwork from Tuscany.

Even so, there was never more than enough to keep pace with the
mounting population. The strain on Athens was constant, and competition
severe. And this, too, had its effect on the people's character. They grew
more grasping and aggressive. As their fleet came to assume the control
of the Aegean, they began to be more conscious of their strength and less

69

scrupulous in their use of it. We are approaching an era of what we may
term Power Politics, an era in which selfish calculations were nakedly
advertised and armed might acknowledged to be the mainspring of
policy. Athenian democracy, in short, was on the make and ready for
every enterprise; and more than anything else its future depended on the
type of leadership it found.

Fortunately, perhaps, the masses did not turn for guidance to members
of their own class. Few among them can as yet have been ripe for political
responsibility. Themistocles himself disappeared from the scene
ostracized through the intrigues of aristocratic opponents; and half a
century was to pass before another bourgeois came to the fore. The days
of demagogy were not yet. So the Democracy accepted the leadership
of the aristocrat not now from sheer force of habit, but for his practical
experience, his superior education, and, perhaps we may add, for his
virtues too. For the "gentleman's" code was still upheld in the best
Athenian families. The old ideals of Moderation and Justice were still
preserved, and they were the constant theme of the writers of the period.
Herodotus never fails to point out the dangers of Pride, and Xerxes' fate
was to him the classic example of Pride's fall. The same is true of drama.
The plots of ^Eschylus' and Sophocles' plays normally hinge on the
Nemesis awaiting the frantic word or foolish boast, and the self-will that
will not listen to reason. Even in the calm repose of Phidias* sculptured
figures we can discern the same moral idealism.

The urgency of such preaching is evidence enough of how much it
was needed; and in the Athenian democracy, as we have seen, dangerous
forces were at work which only the firm hand of a clear-sighted statesman
could curb and direct; and now, as at previous crises in the city's history,
a man was to be found capable of the task the greatest of all her leaders,
Pericles.

Pericles belonged to the same distinguished family as Cleisthenes. He
was a man of high culture, the friend of poets and philosophers. But he
was also the most adroit of leaders. Like Stalin, he kept himself secluded
from public view, never wishing to make himself cheap, yet never afraid,
if need be, to speak out against public opinion. They nicknamed him the
"Olympian," and on the rare occasions when he appeared on the platform,
he spoke with grave but dynamic dignity. "The Olympian, lightened and
thundered," said one of the poets. From Thucydides we have versions of
some of his speeches. How much of them is Pericles and how much the
historian, is not easy to say; but their tone is deeply impressive, and
something at least of the speaker's idealism must have found an echo
there.

70

Both by his oratory and still more by his personality Pericles wielded
an immense influence over the Assembly. At one period, indeed, his
authority seems to have gone almost unchallenged. Nevertheless, we
must beware of assuming that he had a completely free hand in his
direction of policy. He was the leader but only the leader of an extremely
high-spirited people, on whose vote year by year he was dependent for
his continuance in office. He had to take his countrymen as he found
them. He was bound in some degree to interpret their wishes. Still more
was he bound to diagnose the deeper and unexpressed needs of their
spirit, and to direct, so far as possible, the economic and other forces
which were driving them along perilous and difficult paths. In this task
he largely succeeded. His only real failure was that, once he himself was
removed, the lessons he had striven to teach them were so soon forgotten.
But few even of the greatest statesmen can educate their posterity.

2. FOREIGN POLICY

In the aftermath of Salamis, Pericles was not yet old enough to take
the political stage. After Themistocles' fall, therefore, the leadership
passed to Cimon, already the most energetic spirit in pushing the counter-
attack against Persia. Like his father, Miltiades, he was an aristocrat of the
old school, frank, chivalrous and athletic, a thorough "good fellow."
His pet project was to maintain good relations with Sparta whose institu-
tions he greatly admired; and in 464 an unexpected chance came. In that
year a terrible earthquake shook the Peloponnese. Sparta was laid in
ruins. The Helots, seizing their opportunity, rebelled and gathered their
forces to the impregnable hill of Ithome in Messenia. All attempts to
dislodge them failed. Cimon conceived the idea of going to the Spartans'
assistance. Leave was granted him, but he was no more successful, and on
his return home he was not re-elected. Pericles had been foremost in
ridiculing the notion that Sparta and Athens could work together; and
in the following year (461) he found himself in power in Cimon's place.

The thirty-two years of Pericles* rule and it was almost uninter-
rupted fell roughly into two halves, a period of continuous warfare
followed by a period of nominal peace. The first half was crowded with
events. Campaigns were fought in half a dozen different countries. On a
war memorial, which has survived, were recorded the names of the
fallen in one Attic clan alone: "Of the Erechtheid tribe, these died in one
year fighting in Cyprus, Egypt, Phoenice, Halieis, Aegina and Megara."
A remarkable record; but at the same time for the historian a complex
situation not easy to disentangle. Three spheres of action, however, may
be distinguished: first, against Persia; second, against members of the

71

Delian League; third, within Greece itself. We will deal with them in
that order.

About the time that Pericles came into power, the Egyptians under a
prince named Inaros had revolted against Persia. Athens depended some-
what already on corn supplies from the Nile, and the chance of assisting
Egypt's liberation seemed too good to miss. A fleet of two hundred
galleys was sent, but after a promising start the expedition failed disas-
trously. Not a ship returned; and a second squadron sent in reinforcement
fared little better (454). Pericles had the wisdom to close at last the long
chapter of hostilities begun at Marathon and in 448 he made peace with
the Great King.

Meanwhile the prolongation of the struggle with Persia had had
important repercussions in the Aegean. As the peril from the East appeared
to recede, the members of the Delian Confederacy had grown increasingly
restive. The annual contribution to the Central Fund irked them. They
were discomposed, too, by Athens' high-handed methods. As early as 467,
the year before the Eurymedon battle, the island-state of Naxos tried to
secede and had been crushed. After the Eurymedon further precautions
against Persia seemed needless, and a more general rot set in. There was
no concerted movement. One by one the members of the League sought
to evade their obligation; and one by one Athens held them to it by force.
By the middle of the century the three large island states, Lesbos, Chios
and Samos, alone remained with a nominal autonomy and fleets of
their own.

The ethics of secession are never easy to determine (as the United
States found to their cost); and Athens strong policy was not without its
justification. Though at the moment the Persian Empire was enfeebled,
another Xerxes or Darius might any day succeed to the throne, and the
bulwark of the Delian League was not a thing lightly to be thrown away. 1

Athens, however, was not content simply to hold the League together.
She was assuming the role of mistress rather than leader. The meetings
of the Confederate Council were discontinued, and in 454 she took a still
more significant step. It was a critical year. The best part of her fleet had
been lost in Egypt; and if the Persians cared to enter it, the Aegean was
at their mercy. Pericles took his precautions. He removed the League
treasure from Delos for safer keeping on the Acropolis. But it was never
sent back. Thus the seal was set on a policy to which perhaps Athens was
already committed in her suppression of die secessionist movement. The
League was a league no longer: it had become her Empire.

1 At the end of the century when Athens fell, Persia very soon resumed the control of
Ionia.

72

The ethics of Imperialism, as of secession, are subject of controversy;
and it is not for ourselves to cast a stone at Athens. But in the last resort
the issue must turn on the use to which Empire is put; and Athens' use
of it was certainly open to criticism not least her sequestration of the
tribute-funds wrung from unwilling subjects. Yet there is also much to
be said on her side. Normally even the tribute itself cannot have been
exorbitant, else it would scarcely have been possible later on, under the
exigencies of war, to treble its rate. 1 If part of the fund was spent on the
beautification of Athens, the bulk of it went to the upkeep of the fleet,
which kept Persia at bay and policed the Aegean. In this and other ways
the subject-states gained as much as they lost. Piracy was suppressed. They
enjoyed the use of the Athenian currency, a great stimulus to their trade.
The importation of Black Sea corn was regularized. Most of it went
first to the Piraeus for subsequent distribution; but direct traffic was
sometimes licensed. Nor politically were the subject-states too badly off.
With each state, as it sought to secede and was brought to heel, Athens
had made a separate treaty; and the terms were not onerous. An Athenian
garrison was rarely imposed. A democratic constitution was de rigeur
(since compliance could more safely be counted on from the popular
party); but otherwise they were left to manage their local affairs. Law-
suits between Athenian merchants and theirs might be taken to the
Athenian courts; but since these were notable for their equity, this was
less a hardship than a privilege. Evidence, indeed, is not lacking that the
benefits of the Empire were even appreciated. Troops from the subject-
states served loyally with Athenian contingents, and on one occasion
stood by them to the death rather than desert to the enemy. 2 Some cities
of the North-West Aegean, though not original members of the League,
actually came unasked under Athens' protection, and paid her a voluntary
tribute.

Yet it would be idle to pretend that Athens' rule was popular. When a
chance came to rebel, it was usually taken. The passion for independence
was ineradicable among Greeks, and it was characteristic of them to be
always "agin the Government." Yet, taken all in all, it is doubtful
whether, in antiquity at least, any imperial rule could boast a more solid
justification; and it would be tempting to add, in modern times, too.

The reduction of the secessionists cannot have entailed much serious
fighting. Among the Erechtheid tribe, it seems, no lives were lost across
the Aegean, and in most cases a mere threat of blockade must have been
sufficient. Otherwise, Athens could scarcely have undertaken during this

1 Seep. 112.

2 During the Sicilian expedition.

73

period a whole series of wars nearer home. The motive of these was
pretty clearly commercial expansion. Her chief trade rivals were Corinth,
Megara and the island of Aegina. First in 461 Megara, nervous of Corinth,
had come under Athens' protection. Then Aegina, though assisted by
Corinth, was conquered. Finally, Sparta intervened and drew Boeotia
into the war. But this merely gave Athens a pretext for further aggression.
In 457 she attacked Thebes, the leading Boeotian city, and by one sweeping
victory took under her sway not Boeotia only, but much of the adjoining
country westwards. Nearly the whole upper coast of the Corinthian Gulf
passed into her hands, and at the narrow exit of the gulf she planted a
settlement at Naupactus. Thus she threatened Corinth's vital outlet to
the trade of Sicily and Italy.

For a while, indeed, it looked as though Athens would establish over
Northern Greece a hegemony similar to Sparta's hegemony over the
Peloponnese. But she had over-reached herself. Her reserves of man-
power were limited, and her grip on the conquered territory was pre-
carious. In 447 the Boeotian cities rose and defeated her in battle. This
was a signal for Megara and Euboea to rise too; and, to top all, Attica
was simultaneously invaded by a Spartan army. Athens surmounted the
crisis. The Spartans were bought off by a bribe to their King, and she was
left free to reduce Euboea at leisure. But her Land Empire was irretrievably
lost. Aegina and Naupactus were all that remained of her conquests. In
445 she concluded a thirty years' truce with Sparta. It was not to run
half of its time.

During the dozen years or so of uneasy peace which followed, Pericles
was not idle. He must dearly have envisaged a renewal of the struggle
with Sparta and out of the imperial tribute he set aside a war-reserve
which, by the time it was needed, amounted in value to seven million
pounds of our money. But he found other and more commendable uses
for the accumulating funds. He had already embarked on an architectural
programme calculated to make Athens the finest city in Greece, and he

PLAIB VH

A reconstruction of the Parthenon, as seen from inside the Propylaea. It shows (i) in the gable
or "pediment'* a group of figures representing the scene of Athena's contest with Poseidon
for the soil of Attica; (2) under the gahle the row of two-figured groups of combatants
(known as "metopes"); (3) dimly discernable between the pillars 1 the femous "Freize,"
most of which, together with some of die pedimental figures, are now in the British Museum.
All three sets of sculpture were designed, and in part perhaps worked upon, by Phidias.

1 Along the sides of the temple the Freize is placed high "on the outer wall of the shrine
itsel At the ends, however, it runs above the row of secondary columns. In this position it
would be invisible from the view-point of this picture; so, to give some impression of its
part in the decorative scheme, I have here placed it in the same position that it occupies along
the sides of die building.

74

PLATE VH

PLATE VHI

was now at liberty to proceed with it. First on the Acropolis came the
building of the Parthenon, a new temple dedicated to Athena. It was
completed in 438 and presently adorned with the sculptures of Phidias
(now one of the chief treasures of the British Museum). Next followed
the construction of an Entrance gate or Propylaea at the western approach
of the Acropolis; and nearby the completion of a little temple, already
begun, to the goddess of Victory, Nike. The genius of Phidias was
further employed on two colossal statues of Athena. One cast in bronze
stood just inside the new Propylaea; the other, made of ivory and gold,
was placed in the Parthenon itself. Athena's old shrine, the Erechtheum, 1
was rebuilt somewhat later. Phidias* giant statues have long since dis-
appeared, but the buildings above mentioned still stand, albeit in sad
disrepair.

Meanwhile down at Piraeus a vast scheme of reconstruction had gone
forward. Here town-planning that strange by-product of Pythagorean
theories had free play; and the quayside city was laid out on a rectangular
pattern with broad streets leading to stately arsenals and warehouses.
Thus the new and populous suburb presented a strong contrast to the
older city. There, though the market-place was surrounded by fine
buildings and porticos and adorned with masterpieces of statuary and
painting, the rest of the town, having grown up at haphazard, was still a
medley of narrow winding alleys.

In this contrast, too, was reflected a marked social difference. Compared
with the adventurous go-ahead commercialists of the port, the City, as
the seat of government and the home of the aristocracy, stood for a more
level-headed and cautious conservatism. As time went on, it was the
former class rather than the latter that was to weigh the scales and decide
the fate of Athenian Democracy.

3. PERICLES' POLITICAL IDEAL

Pericles was a political realist. He had no illusions about the character
of the imperial rule. He knew that Athens was hated. "Your Empire,"
he once said, "has become a tyranny, wrongfully won, some say, but a
tyranny you cannot safely surrender." In other words, if Athens was to
govern, she must govern strongly, and she did. These were stormy days,
with a prospect of worse to come. It was no time for concessions to
sentiment; and even at home, for reasons which we cannot fully under-

1 See Plate DC.

PLATE VHI

The goddess Athena from a vase-painting. She wears her breastplate or "aegis" in the centre
of which is a Gorgon's head. In her hand she holds her owl.

75

stand, Pericles curtailed the facilities for naturalization and so limited the
enjoyment of citizen rights to pure-blooded Athenians only.

Yet we know that Pericles was an idealist too. He had a dear vision
of what he wanted his own country to be. What we do not know is
whether he had an equally dear vision for Greece. That he consciously
aimed at its unification, Thucydides never so much as suggests. Yet what
was the alternative? There could be no permanent modus vivendi between
democratic Athens and oligarchical Sparta. Sooner or kter a dash was
sure to come; and from it the one or the other was bound to emerge as
master of Greece. Pericles was too far-sighted a statesman not to have
considered what use should be made of such an opportunity, but no
doubt he was also too wise to say so in public.

One move of his was, however, significant. After concluding peace
with Persia he had invited all Greek states to meet together in conference
and discuss the restoration of temples destroyed in the war. This belated
and, as it proved, unsuccessful proposal discloses something at least of
what was in Pericles' mind. There is a phrase in one of his speeches which
throws a clearer light on it (and of the many sayings attributed to him by
Thucydides, none has a more authentic ring). "Athens," he said, "is the
educator of Hellas." So it was a cultural unity at the very least that
Perides envisaged a cultural unity which his own country might give,
and, if his daim were true, was already giving to Greece.

All the highest spiritual traditions of Athens were blended, so to say,
in Pericles' own personality. Like Solon, he was a student of philosophy;
like Pisistratus, a lover of arts; like Cleisthenes, a believer in freedom of
thought and speech. He had gathered round him a brilliant circle of
intellectuals, among them the poet Sophodes and the sculptor Phidias.
Others, if only for a time, he attracted from abroad, Herodotus the
historian, Protagoras the educational expert, and Anaxagoras the philo-
sopher. At his invitation many men of distinction came to settle in Athens.
One was a Syracusan manufacturer named Cephalos, a friend of Socrates
and father to Lysias the eminent legalist. Such aliens, though exduded
from the franchise, pkyed a valuable part in the cultural life of the city.

Thus Athens was rapidly becoming what Ionia had once been, the hub
and focus of intellectual and literary activity. Architecturally she was the
most beautiful city in Greece. Her dramatic performances were witnessed
by visitors from all over her Empire. She was setting a new standard of
civilization which little more than a century hence Alexander was to

PLATE DC

Erechtheum. This temple, which stands on the Acropolis to the north of the
Parthenon, was built in the Ionic style.

PLATE IX

PLATE X

spread through the whole Eastern world. And even now, though her
subjects might justly complain that they paid a high price for them, these
amenities were something which they might themselves imitate and even
come to share with pride.

But the "education of Hellas" cannot in Pericles' mind have been
entirely confined to the aesthetic or intellectual field. His speech from
which that phrase is quoted and which we will reproduce in part below,
was one long panegyric of the Athenian way of life. This he passionately
believed to be the best in the world. His countrymen, he claimed, were
liberal in outlook, tolerant towards their neighbours, law-abiding citizens
of the state, versatile and adaptable, ready to face every problem and
danger with the enterprising spirit of free men. No doubt he would have
wished to see other Greeks follow their example. But the fatal dilemma
remained. It was because they were free men that the Athenians had
developed these qualities; and yet the very method by which Pericles
sought to impose Athenian culture on others, began and ended in depriv-
ing them of their freedom. That fatal dilemma had its roots deep in the
whole political system of Greece.

This much', however, may be said. Pericles' belief in freedom sprang
from a profound faith in human nature. His long experience of Athenian
democracy cannot have failed to teach him what the dangers of freedom
were; yet despite all the hard tussles he must have had with his country-
men, he was prepared to trust them still. That was the real secret of the
success of his leadership: and who can say whether, had he lived longer,
his faith might not have carried him on to yet bolder experiments? l

4. THE FUNERAL SPEECH

The occasion of the speech, to which reference has been made, was an
annual ceremony in commemoration of citizens who had died during
the year in the country's service. The main part of it shall be given in
full. After a preamble dealing with the circumstances under which he
was speaking, Pericles proceeded thus:

"I need not dweE on our military history. You are all familiar with the

1 "When their great war with Sparta was drawing to a close and they were on the verge
of collapse, the Athenians extended a grant of citizenship to the inhabitants of the loyal island
of Samos a policy which, if it had been adopted earlier and spontaneously, might have
changed the whole course of history.

PLATE X

Vase-painting of girl supporting the head of a sick boy. It is sometimes fancied that the
Greek temples in their original state must have been almost 'vulgarly flamboyant with
their riot of coloured ornament and carved decoration. But, if a humble vase-painter
could turn a coarse scene such as this into a thing of beauty, is it likely that the greatest
artists of Greece offended against good taste?

77

deeds that have won us the Empire and the stout resistance we have always
offered to Greek or barbarian invaders of our soil. So I will pass on; but
before coming to my main theme, I have something to say about the
social background of our success and about the moral and political ideals
which have made us what we are. The topic, I feel, is apposite to the
occasion, and the gathering of citizens and visitors I see before me will
surely benefit.

"Ours is an unrivalled constitution. So far from owing anything to our
neighbours, it sets the standard for them. On account of its popular bias,
it has come to be called Democracy or the Rule of the Masses. But, in
fact, we enjoy, as between man and man, complete equality of legal
status. In our public life individual talent is the one thing valued. Prefer-
ment depends on merit, not on class; nor does obscurity of rank prevent
any from making his contribution to the common weal.

"An equally liberal spirit is carried into our private relationships.
Everyday life is not soured by petty suspicions. A man may go his own
way and yet incur no resentment, not even the harmless but aggravating
sneer. The same absence of friction extends to our public life. There is a
wholesome dread of law-breaking. We defer to the government of the
day. We defer no less to the legal code, especially when it casts its shield
over the victims of injustice. Least of all do we ignore those rules which
derive their unwritten sanction from the individual's sense of honour.

* 'No where else is manual drudgery relieved by so many cultural
diversions. The state provides for an annual cycle of religious pageants
and competitive performances. The beauty of^our homes helps to make
life less drab; and the very magnitude of Athens attracts imports from
all the world over, so that foreign goods give us as much pleasure as
though they came from home.

"Next observe the contrast between the military methods of our
opponents and our own. Our gates are kept wide. We never adopt their
habit of periodically deporting our aliens. This might check espionage
and the disclosure of important secrets. But we are averse to building up
armaments on the sly. We prefer to trust in our own stout hearts, when
the call for action comes.

"In education, too, there is a similar contrast. The Spartans manu-
facture men by a rigorous lifelong training. We prefer a free and easy
existence; yet man for man we face danger as readily as they. And here
is the proof. If they invade Attica, they do not come alone; they bring
their allies with them. When we inarch, we inarch unaccompanied; yet
nine times out often we come off best, though our enemies are fighting
on their own soil and for all that they hold dear. So far, indeed, our full

78

strength has never been put into the field. What with our naval commit-
ments and the wide dispersal of our forces that is impossible. So from
time to time the enemy may encounter a fraction of our army; and then
they brag of victory or explain away defeat on the pretence that our
whole force was engaged. And, if we like to go as we please, letting
courage grow by habit rather than through the organized drudgery of
the drill-yard, we are on balance the gainers. We avoid the initial strain
of preparation; and yet, when the crisis comes, we meet it just as pluckily
as our plodding enemy.

"And we are remarkable for other qualities. We are lovers of beauty,
and with us it is within the reach of all. 1 We care deeply for things of the
mind, but this does not make us soft. Wealth is with us a means to
creative activity. Poverty itself we are never ashamed to admit. The
disgrace lies in failure to struggle against it The claims of public and
private life do not clash; and concentration on personal business does not
detract from our political flak. As a people we stand out in our con-
demnation of those who 'wash their hands of politics.' This, we hold, is
to shirk responsibility. In debate we are at once critical and constructive;
and, while we like to look before we leap, discussion is with us no
impediment to action. Nowhere else is coolness in council combined
with such daring initiative. Other folk's courage springs from lack of
imagination. It soon leaves them, once they stop to think. But the palm
must assuredly go to the man who has taken the just measure of life's joys
and war's dangers, and so can be deflected by neither from the path of duty.

"My conclusion then is this. As a country, we are an education to
Hellas; and individually such is our versatility that each of us is able to
fill any or every role and to carry it off gracefully too. Nor is this an idle
boast. It is the sober truth; and the proof lies in the proud position we
owe to our national character. Athens alone, when put to the test, rises
above her reputation. She alone can inflict defeat without her foes
resenting their chastisement. Her subjects and hers alone feel no humilia-
tion in serving such a mistress. We have given many tokens of our
strength, and our claim to the admiration of this and future ages is well
attested. We need no second Homer to chant our praise nor the pleasing
tribute of poetic fancy which the facts may later belie. Our evidence is
more solid. There is not a sea or a land into which our adventurers have
not forced a passage, and which does not bear indelibly the marks we
have left there for better or for worse.

1 Pericles' actual words were, "We love beauty with cheapness." They had a dual
significance. First they implied that at little or no cost to himself the citizen might share in
the artistic and literary amenities which the State provided. Secondly, that Athenians avoided
the luxurious extravagance in which the plutocrats of their rival Corinth indulged.

79

"It is for such a city that these men have died, her loyal comrades to
the end. And it is to such a city that we, their survivors, must dedicate all
we have. That is my reason for dwelling at length on our Athenian ways.
It is an instructive picture. It tells us that we have a stake in what others
have not got; and it lends colour and substance to the panegyric which I
am here to pronounce on the fallen. Little indeed remains to add. The
heroism of these men and their like has but pointed the moral of my
earlier theme and few Greeks can hope to find their words tally 'so
closely with the facts. For what to my mind stamps a man as a hero first
evidence it may be or it may be final proof is a soldier's death like
theirs. Some perhaps had their failings; but against these must be set their
gallantry in the field. Whatever damage they did their country in civilian
life, is nothing to the public service they now have rendered her. The
self-indulgent may cling to life's comforts and the poor man to his dream
that luck will turn; but not men such as these. Their overmastering desire
was to be even with the enemy and they proudly resolved to sacrifice all
to that. Hoping the best of the unknown issue, they confidently faced the
visible task before them and made ready to stand firm at the cost of their
own blood. Life was dear, but they held their honour dearer, and so,
when the hour came it brought not terror but glory, from which at that
high moment of hazard they were suddenly rapt away.

"These men then deserved well of their country; and it is for us to show
a courage as dauntless, though leading (let us pray) to a happier close.
No words can measure its import. What the security of our frontier
means, is known to you all, and why should I labour it. Use the evidence
of your eyes. As you go your daily ways, look round you on the visible
might of Athens. Fall in love with this fair mistress; and as you come to
learn her greatness, call to mind the -brave stand of these her chivalrous
champions, their proud refusal to forsake her in the evil hour and their
last noble contribution to her cause. Their sacrifice has won for them
imperishable renown and the most illustrious of sepulchres, not in their
present resting-place; but wherever man's word or deed honours their
memory, there their glory will for ever endure. The whole world is the
sepulchre of the great. The carven stone in some graveyard at home has
little significance, but elsewhere their unwritten memory will outlast
material symbols, alive in the minds of men. Take them as your model,
and remembering that no happiness can be had without freedom and no
freedom without courage, make light of the perils of war. To the un-
happy creature, for whom it holds out no prospect, life may mean little
enough, but he knows no such reason to risk it as those who, having the
greatest hostages to offer to fortune, have most to lose by defeat. What

80

daunts a man of spirit is the degradation of a cowardly surrender, not
sudden death encountered in the heat of battle and under the inspiration
of a common cause.

"I have said my say, as the law ordains and as I could best match the
occasion. The funeral rites are over and in part, at least, the dead have
received their due. One thing remains for the future. The State will bring
up their children at the public charge until they are of age. That is the
material prize she holds out to these and all such for a race thus worthily
run. Men make the best citizens when character can count on the highest
awards.

"Now shed each a last tear for your personal loss and then go your
several ways."

5. DEMOCRATIC CULTURE

How much of his own ideas Thucydides has here placed in Pericles'
mouth is impossible to determine, but we may at least say that the
historian was himself a shrewd and critical observer, and that in the main
this description of the Athenian character is borne out by the known
facts. At the same rime there is no doubt an element of idealization in
Pericles' words. He is preaching, as it were, to his countrymen, painting
a picture of what he wished them to be rather than of what they already
were.

There is, too, an undercurrent of polemics in much of the speech.
Pericles is defending his ideal against the criticism of political opponents.
There was a party in Athens, aristocrats of the old school and led by
another Thucydides, who disapproved of the democratic regime and
would probably have liked a return to some modified form of oligarchy.
After 447, when the collapse of his Land Empire had brought Pericles
into disfavour, these men had enjoyed a brief spell of power; and though
by the time the Funeral Speech was deli vered their influence had dwindled,
it was still worth Pericles' while to discredit their views. Like Cimon,
Thucydides and his followers had a great admiration for Sparta; and to
this the comparison drawn in the Funeral Speech was a fitting retort.
More serious perhaps were their criticism of Pericles* Imperialism. They
disliked the expenditure of the tribute-money on the beautification of
Athens, "like a vain woman," one of them said, "decking herself out
with trinkets." Hence Perides' contention that Athenian culture was
neither luxurious nor "soft" like that of Ionia or possibly the rich mer-
chants of Corinth. The critics even took up the cudgels on behalf of the
tributary-states. And here Pericles answered by a reminder of the com-
mercial advantages of the Empire. A firm grip on the Aegean was vital

81

to the survival of Athenian democracy. Without it half the merchant
class would be ruined, and the over-swollen industrial population reduced
to the severest straits.

And there was another charge levelled against Pericles' policy. It was
said that he had pauperized the Athenians, providing free meals for the
poorest, initiating public works to furnish them employment, using the
state funds for their entertainments, paying them a fee for their attendance
at the jury-courts, not to mention other "pensions and gratuities.'* *
Now there can be little doubt that despite her commercial prosperity
there was much real poverty in Athens. The Funeral Speech harps upon
it more than once; and how low was the standard of life even for the
middle-class citizen can be seen from Aristophanes' comedies. His meals,
it has been said, seem to "have begun and ended with pudding." Some-
times it would be little more than a barley-cake eked out with garlic or
a kipper; on festal occasions perhaps sausage-meat or a rich broth. An eel
or a thrush was a luxury. The fresh fish-market was for the wealthy alone. *
Houses were scantily furnished, and an inventory of the belongings of
even that notorious spendthrift Alcibiades reveals an astonishing austerity.
Nor was there any prospect of a rapid improvement. Commercial and
industrial expansion had their limits. Vacant land for colonization the
old safety valve was no longer available. From time to time, indeed,
small bodies of indigent citizens were planted at strategic points in the
Aegean; but this could be no more than an insignificant palliative. The
population of the capital did not diminish, and the standard of life
remained low.

Since then, like most democracies, the Athenian populace was im-
patient and headstrong, it was essential that they should be kept happy
by some alternative means. Here lay the very kernel of Pericles' policy;
and, like the far-sighted statesman he was, he had undertaken to solve it
by socializing the amenities of life. So the Roman Emperors' policy of
"circuses for the multitude" was anticipated at Athens on a far higher
cultural plane. The architectural programme not merely provided

1 These points are recorded by Plutarch, a historian of A.D. c. 100.

1 Aristophanes wrote, it is true, during the war against Sparta, but in its earlier stages at
least overseas commerce cannot have been much interrupted, else die traders would not have
been so eager to continue the war. In one play the Council itself is represented as being won
over by six-pennyworth of mayonnaise a fantastic joke, but significant. Comedians of
to-day might make similar play with a "banana." In any case, the elaborate organization for
safeguarding and regularizing the food supply tells its own tale.

PLATE XI

The Theatre at Epidaurus in the Peloponnese, looking across the daring ring (in which the
chorus performed) to the stone seats of the auditorium. On the left are remains of the stage

buildings.

82

PLATE XI

PLATE XH

employment, it gave the ordinary citizen something to talk about, and
be proud of. The pageantry of the Panathenaic festival was given a new
magnificence. Near the theatre an Odeon or Music-hall was built for the
holding of choral competitions; and in the theatre itself the productions
were more elaborately staged. These last were the most popular of all,
and a generation later a fund was formed to encourage attendance by the
payment of a small gratuity. 1 But even in Pericles' own time, there was
just ground for his boast that they were "lovers of beauty," and (as he
went on to add) that the beauty was given them "cheap." It was not the
only time in history that "high thinking" has proved an adequate com-
pensation for "plain living." 2

6. SOCIAL DIVERSIONS

At Athens provision for physical recreation was made by the State.
Some small training-schools or "wrestling-grounds" were run by private
enterprise; but the large sports-grounds or "Gymnasia," laid out at the
public expense, were much more impressive affairs, covering a large area
of ground and including baths, undressing-rooms, and so forth. How
much time ah average citizen could spare for daily exercise is difficult to
determine. But Socrates, we know, always counted on finding his friends
at one or other of such establishments; and they were by no means all
members of the moneyed class. In any case, those who had the leisure
followed a normal routine of taking athletic exercise in the afternoon,
followed by a rub down and cold douche. In general, the Athenians were
an active-bodied and active-minded race, and preferred the role of
participants to that of idle spectators. Dancing was popular. Singing and
lyre playing were part of the educational curriculum; and after supper
every guest was expected to "oblige" with a song, generally to his own
accompaniment.

But the great treats of the year were a different matter. In an age, when

1 The object of this was in part, no doubt, to compensate the poor for loss of working
time; but it also had the effect of helping to educate the masses an interesting experiment
in subsidized adult education.

* An analogy might be found in modem Sweden, or in impoverished Russia with her
State-ballet and her People's Homes of Rest and Culture.

" PLATO XH \ ~

Above: Vase-painting. A boy listens to the pipes played by his older friend. The question,
"were the ancients lovers of music?" seems here to receive an adequate answer.
Below: Vase-painting of a wild dance in honour of Bacchus or Dionysus the God of wine.
It is well to remember that despite their habitual self-restraint the Greeks at times broke out
into orgies of drunken revelry, especially at the season of the Bacchic festival. It is noteworthy
that, while he makes the dance beautiful, he has given the dancers themselves coarse features.
The Greeks were quite clear that drunkenness was bestial. All the same they probably regarded
such orgies as Nature's safety-valve for "blowing off steam" from time to time.

83

the sabbatical rest was unknown, the occasional holidays, lasting often
for days at a time, afforded much-needed relaxation, but they afforded
also a feast for the eye, the ear, and the mind as well. Twice a year, at
two festivals in honour of the wine-god Dionysus, dramatic perform-
ances were organized by the State. They were competitive; and some
time in advance authors were invited to submit their work. From the
applicants were chosen three comic playwrights and three tragedians.
Each of the former were represented by a comedy apiece; but each of the
tragedians by four plays, a group of three tragedies (known as a trilogy)
with a serio-comedy to follow. The next step was to collect and train a
chorus. Its members were drawn from private individuals, and the cost
of their training, as of the costumes and other paraphernalia, was borne
by some rich citizen or resident alien.

The origin of Greek Drama must be traced to some primitive form
of ritual dance, in which a chorus, divided into two bands, danced and
sang turn and turn about, as it might be a more elaborate grown-up
edition of the game "Nuts and May." By and by had come a further
elaboration. There was a "leader" of the chorus, and an "Answerer" x or
actor was introduced to converse with him. Hence arose the dramatic
dialogue. All performers wore masks (a relic, no doubt, of the original
ritual), and the actor, by simply changing his mask behind the scenes,
could reappear in a series of different roles. Eventually a second actor and
then a third was added; and with this, drama, as die Greeks knew it,
reached its full development. In the open-air theatre a curtain was
scarcely practicable, and no change of scenery could be made between
the acts. So it had become the function of the chorus to mark these
intervals by a choric ode, sung and danced as of old by two bands in
turn. During the main action of the play they remained as passive
spectators in their dancing-ring or "orchestra" in front of the stage.

The conventions of such a drama may seem to us highly artificial, but
in reality they were no more so than the conventions of opera or oratio.
The actors (unlike the chorus) were professionals hired by the state; and
much of the dramatic effect must have depended on their elocutionary
powers. For besides masks, they wore club-soled shoes to increase their
stature and enhance their dignity. Rapid or violent movement was there-
fore impossible. Nor in the absence of a curtain could death take place on
the stage. Murder and suicide the usual climax of a tragedy was either
heard from behind the scenes or more often reported by a messenger.
Sometimes by a mechanical device the back-scene parted and revealed a
tableau of the bloody corpse with the murderer standing by. Such
The Greek word "hypocrites" is the origin of our word "hypocrite/*

84

A Tragic Actor (reconstruction of a statuette). Note that to increase

his stature he wears a high mask and dul>soled buskins, with padded

clothes and gloves to match.

limitations, however, did not worry the Greeks. A playwright who
knows his job can depict horror more effectively By the magic of words
than by its visual presentation.

In tragedy the plots were invariably drawn from mythology, but in
comedy the scenes and characters were those of everyday life; contem-
porary personages, politicians and generals, philosophers and poets, were
mercilessly burlesqued. At the close of the performances, which occupied
three days in all, judges carefully picked and further sifted by lot, awarded
the prize a bronze tripod or stool, the ancient equivalent of our silver
challenge cups. Their verdict was no doubt influenced by the attitude of
the audience, who expressed their views during the plays with consider-
able freedom, applauding or booing, or even pelting the stage. No
audience could have been more attentive, quick to take a point or to
mark any fault in the actor's rendering. To sit through a long spring day
on a wooden or stone seat under a blazing sun was no mean test of
enthusiasm; the more so when we remember the length of a tragic
trilogy and the highly poetic language in which the plays were cast. Yet
the Athenians certainly enjoyed the experience and talked of the plays
long afterwards. Their conversation (as depicted by Aristophanes) was
full of allusions to them memories of the disappointment felt when a
play by ^Eschylus was expected and the play of some inferior poet came
on instead, or of the laugh which went round when an actor had been
guilty of some comical mispronunciation. Judging, too, by the regularity
with which the prize was awarded to plays of acknowledged genius, the
standard of public taste'must have been very high.

That the Athenians, then, had succeeded in democratizing culture, is
abundantly evident. When Pericles said that the average citizen could
carry anything off "gracefully," he was thinking in terms of the old
aristocratic tradition of elegance and taste and dignified deportment. The
best Greeks of all ages stressed the ideal of beauty to a remarkable degree.
The very phrase which we have translated as "gentleman" was composed
of two words "agathos," which covered every shade of meaning
between brave, public-spirited and good, and "kalos" which covered
every shade between good, noble and beautiful. To have popularized
this ideal by a process of levelling up rather than of levelling down was a
wonderful achievement; and in fact there was among the Athenians
little sign of vulgarization such as too often accompanies modern urban
development. Wealth, as Pericles said, was not flaunted; and the poor
man-did not endeavour to ape a standard beyond his means. Crafts were
peculiarly free from cheap standardized workmanship, such as defiled
the walls of so many Roman villas. The beauty of the very houses, simple

86

and bare though these must have been, served to cheer their occupants
and redeem the drabness of life.

7. DEMOCRACY IN THE WORKING

In assessing the various compensations which lightened for the Athenian
the hardships or drudgery of daily toil, least of all must we forget the
satisfaction he derived from his share in political privilege. The responsi-
bilities of self-government when coming thus for the first time and in
the fullest measure must have been a tremendously exciting experience;
and the Athenians certainly rose to their opportunity. Pericles was not
exaggerating when he said that they could "fill any or every role" with
success.

There was no permanent civil service at Athens. It was against the
democratic instinct to trust professionals. So from top to bottom it was a
government by amateurs. Sophocles the poet was once sent in command
of a naval expedition. Thucydides the historian, though unsuccessfully,
conducted another. A leather-merchant, who had criticized the handling
of a campaign, was elected general out of hand, and told to finish it off
himself. In the Courts no public prosecutor existed; every charge had to
be brought by a private individual, and the idea of citizens arresting
citizens was so unpalatable that slave-constables, imported specially from
Scythia, performed the task under orders from the responsible magistrates.

Of the innumerable small posts in the local administration of Attica
we have no space here to tell. In each "deme" or parish men had to be
found to keep the civic registers, to collect the war-tax when needed, to
organize the religious rites of the district and to supervise the election of
State-Officials. These part-time jobs were performed by voluntary
effort, much as are to-day the functions of school-managers, Justices of
the Peace, or secretaries of cricket dubs. In the city or port market-
wardens, dock-inspectors and collectors of harbour-dues were also
needed. Their duties must have been more onerous, and they received
no doubt some adequate remuneration.

But from time to time an average citizen might also be called upon to
higher responsibilities in the State administration itself. Chief among
these was membership of the Council of Hve Hundred. Any man over
thirty years of age was eligible for election, but, to spread its incidence
as widely as possible, it was forbidden to hold the office more than twice.
The Council's main duties, as we saw in a previous chapter, were to
prepare the agenda for the sessions of the Citizen Assembly. Thus a great
deal of important business passed through their hands the reception of
foreign ambassadors, questions of public finance, and so forth. A Standing

8?

Committee of fifty councillors, acting in rotation month by month, was
kept permanently in session, ready to deal with routine details or with
any emergency that might suddenly arise. The Standing Committee also
presided at the meetings of the Assembly; and, since its members took
turns as chairman for the day, an average citizen might find himself once
in his life-time occupying the proud position of "Speaker" at the
Assembly's debate. Socrates, the philosopher, held this post on an im-
portant occasion when he tried (though unsuccessfully) to veto the illegal
condemnation of certain unfortunate admirals. But neither the president
of the Standing Committee, nor indeed the Council itself, had any real
power to challenge or direct the policy of the Assembly. The will of the
people was decisive and final in all major political issues.

From one of Aristophanes' plays we have an account of the proceedings,
and it is so picturesque that it seems worth while reproducing some of it
here. The Assembly met on the Pnyx, a broad auditorium levelled out
of a hillside overlooking the town. At its top end was die speakers' plat-
form hewn from the rock, and behind it were the seats for the Standing
Committee. Sessions took place at stated intervals three times a month.
When routine business was dull, attendance, it would seem, was un-
popular; and officials dragged a robe well daubed with red chalk down
the market-place till they had gathered a quorum. Punctuality, to judge
from the play, was not a Greek virtue, but then there were no clocks or
watches in those days. Proceedings began with a ceremonial purification
of the site; a priest sacrificed a pig and then made a processional circuit of
the Assembly. When the play opens, a solitary citizen is discovered
awaiting the start of a session. His name may be roughly reproduced as
Mr. Playfair, and the name of his friend and supporter as Mr. Godson.

PLAYFAIR: Of all the plaguy nuisances in life,

here's a morning fixed for Statutory Session

and the Pnyx empty. There the rascals gossip

down in the Market, till the scarlet rope

comes past to catch them; then they just sltidaddle.

Not even the Chairmen in their places yet;

and when they come tardy as usual

what a wild rush and scrimmage there will be

to jockey for front benches. But for Peace

who cares a rap? Alas, my poor, poor country!

and here am I, the solitary first-comer,

ready, you bet, to shout and jeer and barrack

at any speaker who fails to mention Peace.

Ah mid-day gone and here are our good Chairmen

just as I said, all jostling for front pew.

88

HERALD: Pass on in front; gentlemen, pass on in front!

Make way for the priest to pass.

GODSON: Debate begun?

HER.: First speaker, please

GOD.: Well, here I am, and waiting.

HER.: Your name, Sir?

GOD.: I am Godson; and I've got

special instructions from on high to open

negotiations with the enemy.

But, Godson though I be, I've not been voted

travelling expenses by the Councillors.
HER.: Ho, constables!

GOD.: O Gods above, protect me!

PLAY.: Hi, Chairmen there, I really must protest.

It's sheer contempt of Parliament to arrest

a man who merely wants to make a treaty

and let us all go home and hang our shields up.
HER.: Sit down.

PLAY.: By God, I will do no such thing,

unless the Chairmen "chairman" about Peace.
HER.: Pray Silence for the AMBASSADORS FROM PERSIA.

Once the Assembly had heard the speakers and expressed its vote by
a show of hands, it remained for the Executive Officials to put its decision
into practice. Now since Cleisthenes' day, the Archons and War Minister,
elected by a mixed process of popular vote and lot, had proved quite
inadequate for the growing responsibilities and complexities of the high
administration. They had therefore been left to the purely routine business
of superintending religious rites, presiding in the Law Courts, and so
forth. The real executive power had passed to a Board of Ten, in some
ways comparable to a modern Ministry or Cabinet. Its members were
known as "the Generals/' but, like the President of the United States,
who combines the position of commander-in-chief with the control of
peace-time administration, their functions were civilian as well as military.
They handled the Food Supply, administered State Finance, and, above
all, dealt with the diplomatic side of Foreign Policy. At the same time
they were not merely responsible for the organization of the Army and
Fleet, they actually commanded in person whether at sea. or in the field.
Their political influence was naturally great. While they were responsible
to the Assembly for all their actions and took their instructions from it,
they also frequently spoke at its meetings, and had a large hand in shaping
its policy. The fluctuations of public opinion were nowhere more clearly
reflected than in thedioice of the Generals, They were annually appointed
by the direct vote of the Assembly. So, if for example a large section of

89

voters tired of war and wanted peace, the more militant-minded Generals
would fail for re-election, and a more pacifically-minded ministry would
take their place. Not that they were of necessity a homogeneous body.
There was no sense of cabinet responsibility, and men of diametrically
opposed views might often serve side by side. There is, however, good
reason for believing that one of the Ten presided over the rest, and he
no doubt did something to hold them together. It is probable that
Pericles himself owed his long period of power to an almost uninterrupted
tenure of this presidential chair.

Thus from high office of state to the humblest parish clerkship, there
was the widest possible scope for the individual Athenian citizen to enjoy
the privilege of political responsibility, and to gain experience of adminis-
trative practice. One ancient authority asserts that at any given time no
less than fourteen hundred persons occupied some sort of official post.
Nor was even this the end of the citizen's public duties. During his
nineteenth and twentieth year he underwent his military training in* the
Youth Corps called the JEphebes. As an adult he was liable for war-
service, rowing in a galley, if he were poor, marching with the infantry
if of moderate means, riding in the cavalry, if rich. His financial obliga-
tions, on the other hand, were light. The cost of the administration was
not very great, since the higher officials received no salary beyond a
subsistence allowance. There was no standing army apart from the
Ephebes, who garrisoned the frontier forts. Funds for the upkeep of the
fleet came from various sources, fines in the Law Courts, harbour-dues,
the proceeds of the State silver mines, and, not least, the imperial tribute.
So, except in time of war, no direct taxation was levied. There was,
however, one method by which the resources of the very wealthy were
tapped. Men of large fortune, including even the resident-aliens, were
required to undertake various public duties, to fit out a state-galley, for
instance, or to finance the training of a choir or the production of a play
at the dramatic festivals. But there is good evidence that they took a pride
in the performance of their duties. They boasted of their public spirit in
the Law Courts, and, if their choir or play won a prize in the competitions,
they would even put up a monument to record it.

One form of public service remains to be mentioned the judicial
administration. In antiquity, Justice was not, as sometimes is thought, the
monopoly of Rome. Greek Law was planted in the Eastern Mediterranean
by Alexander's conquests long before Pompey annexed Syria to the
Roman Empire; and it required the genius of a clear-minded Greek to
systematize and codify the tangle of Roman legal procedure. Roman
judicial methods, however, lent themselves to systematization; and Greek

90

methods did not; and there lay the difference. Under the Empire a Roman
judge dominated the court, and his rulings upon any moot point were
recorded, thus forming a body of precedents which his successors on the
bench usually followed. In the Athenian Courts the presiding official was
a cipher. The jury had the decisive voice, and not unnaturally they
preferred to ignore any precedents and judge each fresh case on its merits.

Litigants, therefore, had to study the temper of their audience. In every
suit, criminal no less than civil, the party-at-law was compelled to plead
in person. He could, however, engage an expert to write his speech for
him. One such expert was the Lysias above-mentioned; and we possess
several of his compositions. Arguments often strayed very wide of the
exact legal point at issue. Appeals were made to the political sentiments
of the jury, to their patriotism, and above all to their emotions. Yet, to
do the Athenians justice, strong emphasis was kid on the letter of the
law. "This is according to law," "this contrary to law," is a recurrent
theme of the speeches; and often to refresh the jurors' memory, the clerk
of the court was required to read out the text of the kw.

Juries were large, 201, 401, or even more; the odd number precluding
a tie in the votes. A small fee was paid to jurors, and this attracted many
who were old or infirm. Voting was by secret ballot; and, with juries of
such a size, bribery was impracticable. Little restraint was pkced 051
behaviour in court. The speakers sometimes complained of interruptions
and hostile demonstrations. Mass-reactions rather than reasoned analysis
of the evidence must normally have determined the verdict. Nevertheless,
Athenians were shrewd judges of character, and we may well believe
that justice was usually done. The worst aspect of die whole system was
its effect on the people's character. The jurors found great enjoyment in
the intellectual game of thrust and parry; and Aristophanes' picture of the
elderly habitue's of the courts is not a pleasant one.

8. THE NEW EDUCATION

The Athenians' outstanding qualities their practical capacity, their
aesthetic enthusiasms, their reasonableness and enterprise, and their quick
adaptability to new situations should not be allowed to blind us to their
many shortcomings. In them, as in many civilized communities to-day,
there was much of the savage still untamed. Superstition died slow. It
was the custom for the Assembly to adjourn if a spot of rain fell or any
other bad omen occurred. Men of high standing kept private astrologers;
and an eclipse of the moon once caused a fatal postponement of military
plans. Callousness and brutality were other symptoms of lingering

PI

barbarism. Infanticide was still the recognized method of birth-control.
Torture of citizens was forbidden by kw, but at one period the kw was
repealed; and even in normal times the evidence of slaves might only be
taken under threat or application of the rack; so little, it was thought,
could they be trusted to tell the truth against a revengeful master. Im-
morality and homosexuality went unrebuked and unconcealed. In the
comic drama sex was shamelessly paraded; and, though Aristophanes
considered this cheap, many of his own jokes would never be tolerated
in ever the most licentious of modern societies. The best that can be said
of them is that they were brutally frank, never salacious.

The truth is that, as so often happens during the adolescence of an
individual, intellectual precocity had outstripped growth of character.
Minds had learnt to run, so to say, before moral legs could properly walk.
The mass of the people had begun to assimilate something at least of the
Aristocratic culture; but the sane old ethical tradition, though still
finding its "prophets" in Pericles and the contemporary poets, was far
from being assimilated. The Athenians stood, in short, at a critical phase
of their spiritual development; and just at this moment there came into
play a new and disturbing educational influence which was to intensify
still further the dangerous disequilibrium between mind and character.

One significant symptom of the times was a growing appetite for
knowledge. An interest in intellectual problems had been awakened
under the stimulus which democracy gave to free speech and free thought.
Already discussion and argument were becoming a passion among a
people who centuries later, in the days of St. Paul, never tired of "telling
or hearing some new thing." Hitherto, it is true, Athens had produced
no philosophers of her own. But Pericles, as we have said, was himself a
student of philosophy; and among other intellectuals whom he attracted
to the city was the Ionian savant Anaxagoras. For across the Aegean the
spirit of enquiry was still alive. Heraclitus' doctrine of never-ending
change had left other thinkers dissatisfied, and further attempts were
made to discover the permanent reality which lay behind the shifting
phenomena perceived by the senses. Anaxagoras had his theory. All
things, he said, were compounded of "seeds," or, as we might say,
"atoms." In each corporeal substance every kind of seed was present,
though in varying proportions. Thus, bread, he argued, since it gives life
and growth to the body, must contain all the elements to be found in the
body itself blood, bone, skin, hair, and so on. But behind all lay Mind.
It was active Reason, not accidental Change, which governed the
Universe and made things what they were. Yet even to Anaxagoras,
Mind was itself a substance, more subtle and tenuous than all others, but

92

a substance still; so unable were these early thinkers to imagine an im-
material reality.

It would be hard to exaggerate Anaxagoras' influence on contemporary
thought generally, and more especially in Athens itself. He was a familiar
figure in the streets of the city, and was popularly known by the nickname
of "Nous," or, as we might say, "Mr. Mind." His writings were on sale
in the market; copies could be had for little more than half a crown; and
were eagerly studied, amongst others, it would seem, by Socrates himself.

A Teacher (from a vase-painting). On his knees is a writing-tablet, and in
his hand a "stilus" for writing the blunt end being used for erasures.

There was much, no doubt, in his unorthodox views of the Universe to
shock the more conservative minds; but most of his readers must have
been intrigued to learn that the Sun was a "red-hot stone,'* and that
there were "ravines and valleys" and "houses" in the moon. Thus,
Anaxagoras' ideas gave stimulus to a society already beginning to think
for itself and to apply reason to practical problems. Like most Ionian
thinkers, his main interest lay, it is true, in abstract speculation; but he
was none the less prepared on occasion to come down to earth. His
rationalistic confutation of superstitious beliefs made a great impression

93

on Pericles, and, we may guess, on many others as well; and once, it is
said, lie dissected the skull of a one-horned ram to prove that the prodigy
came from a purely anatomical cause. But, most significant of all, his
insistence on the supremacy of Mind found an answering echo in a
brand-new intellectual movement which at this time was sweeping like
wildfire through Greece, and which was destined to revolutionize the
whole temper and outlook of the Athenian populace.

More than ever the growing importance and size of the city were
attracting to it outsiders whose skill or accomplishments might find
employment and scope there. But the warmest welcome of all was now
reserved for scholars, and scholars of a completely novel type, whose
appeal was no longer in the main to a comparatively small circle of
leisured aristocrats, but to the average man in die street. Anaxagoras and
his fellow-philosophers had always been, first and foremost, what
philosophers should be independent and disinterested enquirers after
truth. But these men came forward as professional teachers with all
manner of technical and practical knowledge to impart; and with their
advent an entirely new chapter in the history of Education began.

Elementary schooling was by no means neglected at Athens. The
regulation made by Solon seems to have given the original impetus; and
there were free-lance teachers in abundance. Attendance at some sort of
class, if not compulsory, was now more or less universal. So from six to
fourteen most boys received their grounding. They learnt to read, write,
and count. They got much poetry by heart. They were taught
singing and lyre-playing; and in the wrestling-school they underwent
physical training. But Democracy had begotten a whole new set of
activities for which this elementary course was no adequate preparation.
The average man, as we have seen, might now be called on to take part
in the public administration, cast his vote in the Assembly, perhaps even
speak at its debates, and, as likely as not, plead his own case in the Courts.
In addition to all this, the various professions were becoming more
complex and a higher standard of efficiency was demanded.

It was to meet this new need and to train men for such functions that
the new professors of learning came forward. They sprang up in almost
all parts of Greece, and in Sicily too; but many of them, not unnaturally,
gravitated also to Athens. "Sophists" or "Wisdom-mongers'* was the
name they went by, and their "wisdom" covered a wide field of subjects.
They taught mathematics, which was useful for accountancy; geometry,
which was essential in surveying and architecture; and astronomy, on
which navigation depended. But above all, they dealt with the arts of-
verbal expression, logic, grammar and rhetoric. In a democratic state, the.

94

power of persuasion was the very foundation of a successful career, and
oratorical skill the aspiration of the ambitious.

But though many Sophists were specialists and professed to impart
particular and practical skills, the best of them took a much wider and
more elevated view of their mission. Chief among these was Protagoras,
whom we mentioned above; and he, and others with him, held an entirely
new theory of education, the significance of which in world history can
scarcely be over-estimated. Hitherto the precise aim of education had
never been clearly defined. In the old aristocratic tradition the moulding
of character to an ideal pattern of what the citizen should be, had been
instinctive rather than rational. But the new school of thought aimed at
developing personality, not by the inculcation of moral virtues, but by
training the mental powers. In other words, the subject which these Sophists
taught were not primarily of value for their practical utility, but for the
mental discipline they provided. This conception of educational method
was in due course adopted by the Romans; and from them it was passed
on to Western Europe, where the subjects the Sophists had taught
grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy
became the Seven Liberal Arts of the Mediaeval curriculum. Nor is the
influence of the Sophists' theory by any means dead even to-day. It is
still reflected in the modern conception of an "all round education" as
opposed to a technical or purely professional training. In detail the
original method has inevitably been modified to suit changed conditions;
but the intention underlying the method remains the same that is, so to
develop the individual's mental powers as to make him a "full man," the
sort of man that, as a member of society, he should be.
(^The popularity of these teachers was amazing. They carried all the
younger folk by storm. In the gymnasia lads would leave their races and
wrestling~to listen to lectures on astronomy or grammar, or to trace
geometrical figures in the sand. They would rise before dawn to attend
the discourse of some newly arrived savant; and when their favourite
lecturer left the city, they would follow him to his next destination.
Gradually the educational craze came to permeate the whole life of the
city; and the change that resulted fromit was fraught with far-reaching and
often disastrous consequences. An inquisitive and critical spirit, hitherto
confined to some cultured few, now caught hold of the masses. Every
Athenian, Aristophanes tells us, was eternally asking, "How's this?" and
"What is the explanation of that?" In short, they were like children who
have suddenly become aware of their own intellectual powers and who
are learning to grow up) But there are many pitfalls in that difficult and
hazardous process; and; though the Sophists must have their due of

95

credit for the stimulus they gave to Democracy's education, it may be
questioned whether they were the best people to give it. For, unlike the
traditionalist teachers, they left one vital thing out of account the moral
factor. They set out to make good citizens simply by sharpening men's
wits. But gced citizenship is of little value if the aims of die state itself
are bad; and what higher ends such mental training should serve they
never stopped to consider. Perhaps the real root of the trouble was,
however, that the Sophists, while protesting idealism, were themselves
little better tW intellectual adventurers, individualists with no com-
munal aim. They did not, like the Ionian enquirers, seek knowledge for
its own sake alone. They lived not^br their profession, but by it. They
charged fees for their tuition; and the fees were exceedingly high. Then
again, they wandered about from city to city and so became in the last
resort denationalized.(They advertised their lectures by making the most
extravagant promises? "Whoever completes my course," one claimed,
"will be able to win any law-suit." In fact, it was an open boast among
them that they could "make the worse appear the better cause." ^Somc
Sophists assumed arrogant airs, pretending to an omniscience which was
quite contrary to the best traditions of Greek scholarship. Their indivi-
dualist bias was at times even nakedly avowed. Protagoras himself
declared that "man was the measure of all things." In other words,
"nothing was immutably right or true. I stick to my ideas, but you may
have yours; there is little to choose between them."

Individualism, no doubt, was already in the air. Democracy was bound
to breed it; and the Sophists perhaps were merely giving expression to an
inevitable and an essentially healthy development of human nature.
Nevertheless, their teaching could scarcely have come at a more un-
fortunate moment. At Athens, as we shall see, it found the whole national
temper embittered and unbalanced! by the hideous ordeal of plague and
the prolonged strain of war. As so often in times of crisis, factional
interests and personal ambitions tended to take precedence over the good
of the State; and men's minds were thus predisposed to grasp at any
cynical theory or unscrupulous expedient. So it is hardly to be wondered
at if in the immediate issue such Individualist doctrine had a highly
unsettling effect, among the rising generation especially. Many of the
younger men lost their moorings and went completely adrift. Having
learnt methods of criticism from their teachers they proceeded to try
them out on their own. They pulled established beliefs to pieces, and
made hay of the older folks' conventions. Some took to politics and
argued on the platform that might was right, the strong must prevail and
self-interest was the only possible motive of policy. Others broke into

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wild anti-social excesses. One notorious young aristocrat, Alcibiades,
employed his brilliant wits for a career of pure self-seeking and eventually
turned traitor to his country. 1 Such were the bitter fruits of this once
promising movement. Under the leadership of men bred on the new-
fangled doctrines, Athenian democracy was to plunge into follies and
brutalities which not even the Sophists themselves would ever have
approved.

9. THE DRAMATISTS

The trend towards individualism can nowhere be better traced than in
the dramatic literature of the period. Fifth century Athens produced three
great tragedians ^schylus, whose career covered the time of the Persian
wars and the two following decades; Sophocles, who wrote during the
middle and closing years of the century, and Euripides, who was his
younger contemporary. As a member of the generation which witnessed
Marathon and Salamis, and himself a participant in both battles, ^Eschylus
was regarded by posterity as the typical champion of the old morality,
the spiritual heir of the Homeric tradition and the representative of all
that was best in the past. But in reality ^Eschylus was much more tK?"
this. His poetry was couched in a sublime magniloquent diction, and its
sublimity reflected the workings of a deeply religious mind. The orthodox
belief in a plurality of gods he outwardly accepted as in duty bound; but
it is clear that at heart he was himself a monotheist and held a profound
conception of the deity. To him the supreme power was essentially
righteous and just; and the problem which troubled him (as it troubled
the Hebrew Psalmist and the author of Job) was the cause and origin of
suffering, especially the suffering of the seemingly guiltless. In his plays
he sought to probe the problem to its roots; and the answer he gave was
this. Side by side with God there exists in the Universe a malignant
power, the counterpart and antithesis of Good Fortune in which most
ancients believed. This evil power lies in wait for man, and when by his
pride or his folly some pretext is given, smites him ruthlessly down. Nor
does its capacity to harm stay there. The father's sin of pride may even
pursue his children and his children's children. This idea of the "family
curse'* forms the theme of ^Eschylus' masterpiece, the trilogy known as
the Oresteia. King Agamemnon himself so the trilogy starts had
inherited a legacy of guilt from a hideous crime of his father; and, to

1 Alcibiades, it is true, was Socrates' pupil; but he was far too acute not to know all the
Sophists' theories, and all that he did or said betrayed their influence on him. The Sophist,
at his worst, is portrayed by Plato in his "Republic," though how far this is a historical picture
is hard to say. In any case, Aristophanes in his "Clouds" (see page 103) makes a very damning
attack on them and on their effect of their teaching.

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make matters worse, his own vain-glory after the conquest of Troy
delivered him into the power of the watchful demon. On his return he
was murdered by Clytemnestra his treacherous wife. Blood called for
blood; and his son Orestes haunted by evil spirits of Vengeance, then
took his mother's life, and the father's sin thus found issue in the reluctant
deed of the innocent soul-tortured son. "Man learns by suffering," was
^Eschylus' final message; and by this formula the ancients' superstitious
dread of Nemesis was at last given its place in a rational view of the
Universe. Truths are none the worse for being old; and it is worth
remembering that in the mediaeval Church pride was accounted the
worst of sins. The experience of modern Europe gives no cause to reverse
that verdict.

^Eschylus was indeed a giant among dramatists. The characters of his
pkys, and the plots themselves no less, are cast in a titanic mould. There
is no poetry in Greek literature so majestic as his; and, if we accept the
Aristotalian dictum that the function of Tragedy is to evoke "Pity and
Terror," then the Oresteia must be ranked among the supreme achieve-
ments perhaps even as the supreme achievement of the art. In it we
witness men and women, not struggling, like Shakespeare's men and
women, with problems and temptations to which in one degree or
another all human flesh is heir; but rather caught, as it were, in some
cosmic scheme of catastrophe, helpless yet still heroic in their helplessness,
as Fate sweeps them irresistibly to their doom. Among the captives whom
Agamemnon had brought home with him from Troy, was the Princess
Cassandra, a prophetess whose destiny it was always to foresee the future
yet never to be believed. Before she leaves the stage to follow her captor
through the Palace door, the trance suddenly comes upon her, bringing
a vivid premonition of the death there awaiting herself as well as him.
Visions of horror rise before her eyes. The very walls appear to her as
though running with blood. As she finally enters, she speaks these lines
of moving simplicity, all the more effective by contrast to the playwright's
usual style.

CASSANDRA: Now I must pass within to hymn the death-chant

over my lord and me. I have done with life.

Yet, friends, I'll make no idle whimpering,

as a weak bird flutters at the brake. Hereafter

be ye my witness how I spake true at the last;

and when the day comes that a woman's life

shall pay the price of mine and when a man

shall fall for him whose wife was false, Remember!

It is not mucli I ask who am to die.
CHORUS: Alas, poor maid. Thy weird is come on thee.

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CASSANDRA: Hark yet once more to no dirge for my own passing,
but a cry, my last cry under the light of the sun,
calling vengeance upon these murderers
for a poor slave's lite so lightly taken. O
the pity of man's lot! Dwells he with joy,
'tis a vain shadow. Or with sorrow, blot
but wet sponge over and so vanish all,
nothing from nothing left fitter for tears
the fate of such than is the fall of kings.

By contrast with ^Eschylus, Sophocles was more of an. artist than a
thinker. There was never a more consummate master of the playwright's
craft. His plots move forward to their appointed climax with a matchless
interweaving of circumstance and character. His choric odes expressed in
lovely language the same old "prophetic" theme "Meden agan," "Noth-
ing in excess"; and he himself was a living embodiment of the sobriety
he preached. He continued well past middle life to practise his favourite
art of dancing, and he reached the unusual age of ninety.

It is in his delineation of character that Sophocles best displays the
spirit of his age. The personalities of ^Eschylus' plays had been little more
than types; they display no individual traits. Clytemnestra, for example,
is an incarnation of lust and treachery, not a real human being with
doubts or a sense of remorse. She would never, like Lady Macbeth, have
been troubled to feel the blood on her hands. Sophocles' characters, on
the other hand, are faithful studies of human nature. Each speaks, if not
with an idiom of his own, at least in a different tone; and there is a rich
diversity among them. In his play "Antigone," we have the picture of a
ruler, called into power at a crisis, and nervously uncertain of himself.
He is determined to govern strongly, so he threatens and thunders and
blusters; then suddenly aware that he has gone too far, he stops short
and retracts. His speeches are full of moral or political platitudes the
refuge of a man who knows his job only through hearsay, not by experi-
ence. "Honesty is the best policy," "All will be well if each does his
duty," "The young must bow to their betters." The most significant
character of the play, however, is his niece Antigone one of the noblest
heroines in literature. She is faced by a terrible choice. Her brother had
turned traitor to his country and been killed. Her uncle had forbidden on
pain of death the burial of his corpse. According to Greek ideas burial was
a necessary passport to the underworld; and Antigone decided to defy
her uncle's threat, and to follow a higher allegiance to Divine Law. This
is what she says:

CKBON; Yet hadst thou courage to transgress my law?

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ANTIGONE: The Almighty hath not set his seal thereon,

nor spake kind mercy for the piteous dead
in that fell utterance. Thy writ, O King,
hath not such potence as will overweigh
the laws of God, not graven up on stone,
immutable which whence they are none knoweth,
not of today nor yesterday, but fixed
from everlasting to eternity.
What though man rage, I must obey that law
and count it but a little thing to die.
For death must come; and, Si die today,
Why, I am glad to quit this world of tears
where is the bitterness, far bitterer were't
to leave my mother's son unsepulchred.

Here, then, starkly but most artistically portrayed, was the eternal
conflict between the authority of the State and the conscience of the
Individual; and, if anyone doubts whether the individualist spirit, which
first found birth in fifth-century Athens, has' proved a blessing or a curse
to mankind, the answer lies in this drama of Sophocles. Lacking as it did
a moral objective, the Sophists' teaching may have done much temporary
harm. But at least it served the purpose of making the individual thinlr
for himself. Greece made no greater contribution to human history than
by thus establishing the supremacy of the private conscience; and the
upward path of progress is paved with the decisions made by such martyrs
to a higher call as the girl Antigone.

Euripides even more than his two predecessors was the child of his
generation. The Sophist movement was then at its height, and he reflects
it at every turn. The speeches in his plays are perfect samples of the new
rhetorical art. His characters pit argument against argument in sound
logical order. Often, too, the arguments themselves are of the cold
calculating type derived from Sophistic training. But his thought went
incomparably deeper. His highly critical mind made him sceptical of the
established creeds and especially of the wildly emotional side of certain
religious cults. Even the myths he held up to question, and Aristophanes
frankly wrote him down as an atheist. But what made Euripides so great
a dramatist was his profound understanding of human nature, its littleness
and its greatness, its passions and fears, and above all its irrationality. He
was a psychological realist, and he treated the old stories as though they
were stories of contemporary life, reading into the minds of the mytho-
logical characters the thoughts and emotions of the men and women he
saw around him. Take the speech he puts into the mouth of Medea, a
woman brought from a foreign land to Greece and there jilted by a

100

faithless husband. It is an astonishingly intimate study of the feelings of a
bride, written in an age when such feelings were little considered:

Of all things living that draw mortal breath

we women are the most distressful creatures,

who first with a multitude of worldly goods

must buy us husbands, lords over limb and life,

running herein great hazard of freak chance;

for to new home and habit unfamiliar,

the young bride needs must use diviner's art

to gauge untutored the temper of her mate.

Be he indulgent and the twain harmonious

life is all bliss; but falls it otherwise,

far better 'twere to die. For a man hath vantage

who may betake him, when the home-life paUs,

to mate with cronies and in companionship

beguile his humour. But for us poor wives

'tis solitary communion with the one same soul

for ever. O 'tis said that, while men fight,

we women lead a safe snug life at home;

comparison most false; rather fid stand

three times in the battle-front than once bear child.

Such sentiments accorded ill with contemporary notions about the
female sex; nor was it the elders alone who must have frowned. Men do
not like to be shown the ugly side of their character, and Euripides,
during his life-time, at least, was never popular. It was comparatively
seldom that he was awarded the prize at the festival. But, if as a dramatist
he faithfully portrayed the selfishness and cynicism of his age, this does
not mean that he himself sympathized with them. He was a humane and
sensitive soul, and had a strong fellow-feeling for the underdog. He
loathed the atmosphere of a democracy gone bad; he became embittered
and kept much to himself. Eventually he left Athens and took up his
residence in Macedon. Yet his work had not been thrown away, and in
the following century he was the most highly esteemed of all three
tragedians.

It remains to say something of the comic playwright Aristophanes.
Like Euripides, he belonged to the second half of the century and wrote
during the prolonged war between Sparta and Athens. Fifth-century
Comedy more resembled a revue than a play, though its scenes were
loosely knit together by some sort of plot. Often the plot hinged on the
interplay of two strongly contrasted characters the peace-loving Play-
fair, for instance, and an extremely militant General a tradition probably
derived from some primitive dialogue of the "Punch and Judy" or
"Clown and Harlequin" type. As we have already seen, too, comedy

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dealt with contemporary life; and the poet could give a remarkably free
rein to his personal likes and dislikes; there was no law of libel at Athens.
At one stage of the play, moreover, it was customary for the chorus to
come forward and deliver outspoken political comment reflecting the
author's own views. Thus the comic drama fulfilled the function now
served by the leader-writers or cartoonists of the popular Press.

Aristophanes himself, though first and foremost a humorist, was also a
serious political thinker. His views were conservative. He sided with the
landowning class, rich or poor, who suffered from the war; and he made

A Lesson on the Lyre. (From a vase-painting.)

no secret of his dislike for demagogues. As a true patriot, however, he
sought merely to curb the ways of democracy, not to abolish it. What
was his attitude to the Sophist movement may easily be inferred. In one
comedy called the "Clouds," he lampooned Socrates who, though not
one of the Sophists, in some ways resembled them. In the second act of
the pky he was shown on the stage hanging up in a basket the better to
"contemplate the sun," and on the ground below his pale emaciated
pupils were studying geology with their nose to the earth and their rump
in the air "Doing astronomy all on its own." Towards the close of the
pky Aristophanes introduced two symbolical characters "The Just
Argument" representing the old education, and the "Unjust Argument"

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representing the new. Here is the summing-up of the Just Arguments
views:

JUST ARGUMENT: Prepare then to hear of the Discipline rare

which flourished in Athens of yore,

When Honour and Truth were in fashion with youth

and sobriety bloomed on our shore.

First of all the old rule was preserved in the school

that "boys should be seen and not heard."

Then the kds took the road to the Harpist's abode

well-mannered in action and word;

not a cloak to their name, but they trudged just the same

through the snow and the wintriest weather;

and they sung some old song as they paced it along

not shambling with legs stuck together

"Lead on," it might be, "Pallas queen of the free; "

or it might be "Athenians wha hae,"

to some simple old chant which is all that we want

and was sung by their sires in their day.

But should anyone dare to "hot up" the air

with a newfangled quaver or trill,

he would soon get a whack for his pains on the back

who maltreated the Muses so ill.

None would then even dare such a stimulant fare

as the head of a radish to wish,

nor to make overbold with the food of the old,

the aniseed, parsley or fish,

nor dainties to quaff nor to giggle and laugh

nor his foot within foot to enfold.
UNJUST A.: Faugh! this smells very strong of some musty old song

and of Grasshoppers mounted in gold,

and of sacrificed beasts and those old-fashioned feasts.
JUST A.: Yet these were the precepts which taught

the heroes of old to be hardy and bold

and the men who at Marathon fought.

So you've nothing to fear, opt for ME, my young sir!

for mine is the method for you,

And then will you learn the Market to spurn

And dissolute baths to eschew;

and to rise from your chair, if an elder be there,

and respectfully give him your place.

and with love and with fear your good parents revere

and to shrink from the brand of Disgrace,

and deep in your breast bear the image impressed

of Modesty, simple and true,

nor resort any more to the chorus-girl's door

nor make eyes at harridan crew.
UNJUST A.: Believe me, young 'friend, if to him you attend,

you'll be known as a mammy-suck there.

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JUST A.: Nay, nay, you'll excell in the sports you love well,

all blooming, athletic and fair;
not learning to prate as those idlers debate
in some argument ticklish and cute,
nor dragged into Court day by day to make sport
in some plaguy litigious dispute.
Instead you will fare to the playing-fields where
you may under the oh' ves contend
in a trial of speed, crowned by wreath of plain reed,
with your excellent rival and friend,
all fragrant with woodbine and peaceful content
and the leaf which the lime-blossoms fling
while die plane whispers love to the elm in the grove
in the beautiful season of Spring. 1

These lines were written with very obvious sympathy; and they show
that Aristophanes was harking back, and, as it would seem, vainly harking
back to the ideals of a very different age. It was the age in which his own
elders and parents had been bred, the age of Marathon and Miltiades,
Salamis and Cimon, when the old aristocratic tradition still lingered,
somewhat stiffened perhaps by the Persian ordeal and with its code of
nice manners and strict moral upbringing reinforced by a would-be
Spartan athleticism. But Athens since then had moved far and fast. From
the size, we might say, of a large market town, she had grown to what
was then a metropolis; and this intensive urbanization had altered the
whole complexion of the next generation. The very tone of Aristophanes'
own comedies proved it. There was nothing of gentility here. Their
problems and situations seldom strayed very far from the life of the
ordinary man. 2 Their dialogue abounded in the coarsest vulgarities and
in topical jests about persons of no special note. But they contained much
subtle criticism too, many literacy allusions and witty verbal conceits;
and their appeal, it is clear, was to a serious-minded, highly intelligent
but robustly popular audience, an audience of artisans, merchant-seamen
and tradesfolk. Nor had the change yet reached its full conclusion. There
was to follow a third and a most disastrous phase, in which a still lower
stratum of the populace, and in particular the riff-raff of the port, came
increasingly to call the political tune at Athens. Thus within the compass
of a single lifetime this astonishing civilization passed through the full
bloom of its perfection, to an inglorious decay. In all history there is no
parallel to the bewildering speed of the development, and it was bound
to make the task of contemporary judgment more than usually difficult.

1 Translation adapted from B. B. Rogers.

2 Thus in the "Clouds," the hero and victim of the visit to Socrates' "thinking-shop"
was a bourgeois bred on a farm and then married to an aristocratic lady of the city.

IO4

That he so early recognized the dangerous trend of the new intellectualism
says much for Aristophanes' shrewdness: it was not the popular view,
and the play was placed last on the judges' list. But it was sheer futility to
dream of conjuring back the virtues of a vanished past. Had Athens
preferred to stand still in that past, there might now have been less wild
talk in her market-place, less argument in the gymnasium, and fewer
"plaguy litigious disputes"; but her mental growth would have been
arrested, and she would never have become the Athens of which the poet
was himself so justly proud and which alone had made his own work
possible.

To ourselves this much seems clear. During the period of Pericles'
rule the City State had reached the summit of its achievement. Much as
there had been to admire in the old aristocratic culture with its refinement
of manners, its elegant drinking-songs and delicate statuary, its fine-spun
speculations about the physical Universe, and, above all, as its finest
flower, the tragic masterpieces of ^Eschylus, there was nevertheless some-
thing far more impressive about the democratic culture which succeeded
it and which produced the stern magnificence of the Parthenon, the
scientific austerity of Thucydides, Sophocles* matchless artistry, Euripides'
psychological insight, and Socrates' profound moral teaching; and to
these we may add the vivacious turbulent pageant of life with which
Aristophanes himself has presented us. The idea of social Progress found
no place in the Greeks' way of thought; indeed, while hoping for its
ultimate return, they held man.ki.nd to have degenerated since the Golden
Age of Legend. But Aristophanes' countrymen were the least likely
people in the world to heed his advocacy of the past. They could no more
have gone back to the "good old times" than our own generation could
return to the uneducated days of the mid-Victorian squirearchy. Forward
they had to go; and that way salvation could lie only in a wise intellectual
leadership, the leadership, shall we say, of some second Pericles, who
might appeal to their reason and convince them that the worse was not
the better cause. But, as fate decreed, no second Pericles was forthcoming.
False prophets, on the other hand, sprang up in plenty, and they did not
lack for a hearing. So, by the time those lines of Aristophanes were
written, the rot had already begun to invade public life, Athenian
democracy, as our next chapter will show, was proving false to its own
better principles, and listening more and more readily, as the strain of
war with Sparta told, to the insidious enticements of die UNJUST ARGU-
MENT.

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CHAPTER VII
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

i. A DRAWN FIGHT

In the spring of 431, hostilities broke out between Athens and Sparta;
and at once nearly all Greece was divided into two militant camps,
ranged behind the one or the other protagonist. The war, known as the
Peloponnesian War, formed the theme of Thucydides* history. It was a
work of outstanding importance, the first attempt to treat the record of
human affairs in a truly scientific spirit. By comparison with it, Herodotus'
chatty narrative seems almost childish; and for insight, objectivity and
sheer power of thought and language, it has no rivals in ancient literature,
not many in modern. Its style admittedly is crabbed, at times even
obscure. Prose-writing was then still in its infancy, and Thucydides was
wrestling with novel and intricate ideas. Against this must be set his
vigour of description, his flair for significant detail, and above all his
sense of the dramatic. History to him was an art, not a mere compilation
of facts; and in unfolding his story he never lost sight of the great tragic
issues behind it. Favourite among his devices was to interrupt the
narrative by speeches put in the mouth of this or that character. "They
were drawn," he says, "partly from my own memory, partly from
hearsay. But verbal accuracy was impossible; so I have set down what
I thought the speakers likely to have said under the circumstances, keeping
as well as I could to the gist of their words." But this technical device
served a function beyond mere reporting. Thucydides used the speeches
to analyse the motives and ideas which, in his view, had controlled men's
actions and policies. Such analysis penetrated deep. He has been accused
of exalting a series of insignificant border-raids into an important event
in world-history. Shakespeare, too, when he wrote "Hamlet," was
writing the story of an unimportant Dane; but in the process he has
"written the story of every man's inner life." Similarly, the Greek
historian, dealing with the microcosm of his own tiny world, has
succeeded in laying bare the permanent forces which move human nature
on its political side.

"What made the war inevitable," Thucydides says, "though no one
openly admitted it, was that Athens was becoming too powerful and her
opponents were afraid of her/' So before the actual outbreak fears barely

106

expressed on the one side and ambitions barely concealed on the other
had produced a long period of tension. Several incidents had shown
which way the wind was blowing. Corinth, more than most, had good
reason for alarm. It was not twenty years since her vital traffic with Italy
and Sicily had been gravely imperilled by Athens' encroachments; and
she had no wish to be caught napping again. In 433 she had sought to
strengthen her hold on the westerly trade-route by attacking Corcyra.
Corcyra appealed to Athens, and Athens concluded an alliance and sent
some ships to her aid. The sequel was that after an inconclusive engage-
ment the attack on the island was called off. Next year, 432, Corinth
tried a diversion. Potidaea, one of her colonies in the North-West Aegean,
was a restive member of the Athenian Empire, and it needed little
persuasion to egg her into revolt. Thus Athens was committed to a costly
campaign and a lengthy siege of the town a very serious drain on her
strength at so critical a juncture.

It was now Pericles' turn to play his card; and he determined to give
Corinth a warning of what sea-power, if ruthlessly handled, could
achieve. Across the west Attic border, it will be remembered, ky the
small commercial city of Megara. Apart from lending Corinth some aid
in the attack on Corcyra, she had given no real provocation to Athens;
but suddenly and without warning Pericles issued a decree that all
Megarian produce should be banned from the harbours of the Empire.
This cruel blow meant slow starvation for the little town, and a few years
later Aristophanes, in one of his plays, introduced a Megarian farmer,
desperate with hunger and attempting to sell his two daughters in the
pig-market, suitably disguised in trotters and snouts. But if Pericles thus
hoped to intimidate Corinth, he had miscalculated. He merely increased
her alarm. Towards the end of the year, at her request, a Congress of the
Peloponnesian Confederacy was called, and after much argument her
delegates pushed the reluctant Spartans into a decision for war.

.When by the spring of 431 diplomatic exchanges had ended and the
war began in earnest, the strategic situation in Greece bore a striking
resemblance to the European situation in 1940. On one side was Sparta,
backed by her Peloponnesian Confederates, and, among others north of
the Isthmus, by the Boeotian cities and Thebes an invincible combina-
tion by land. On the other side was Athens with the financial resources
of her Empire behind her and her equally invincible fleet. The city itself
was impregnable; the two long walls secured its communications with
the sea; and the Spartans, as their failure at Mount Ithome had showed,
were no hand at assaulting a defensive position. Athens, in short, could
hold out indefinitely; and, short of some major blunder, Pericles confi-

107

dcndy asserted that the war could not be lost. But to what did he look
for winning it, unless it were to sea-power? "The Peloponnese," says
Thucydides, "could be encircled by war" a somewhat vague statement;
but a Hint of his meaning may perhaps be found in one of the speeches
he reports. There it is suggested that even inland states might feel the
pinch, if imports by sea were cut off; but the maritime states (and by
implication Corinth most of all) would be very hard hit. In other words,
as we might guess, the clue to Pericles' problem ky on the trade-routes.
Now Corinth's traffic with the "West ran first through the narrow Gulf,
and then northwards till Corcyra was reached, whence it crossed the
Adriatic to Italy. Corcyra, as we have seen, was already Athens' ally; and
stationed at Naupactus near the mouth of the Gulf was an Athenian
squadron in waiting. Thus it was possible that Corinth's trade, if not
strangled, might at least be interrupted *; and, if Corinth were once
forced out of the war, the rest of the Peloponnesian Confederacy would
very soon fall to pieces. There, so far as we can judge, lay Athens' best
hope of victory. But on Pericles' own admission no speedy decision could
be looked for; and patience, as later events unhappily proved, was not
the strong point of Athenian democracy.

In the meantime neither of the combatants were disposed to risk a trial
of strength in the element unsuited to them the Athenians by land or
their opponents by sea. All that followed, therefore, was a series of raids
aimed (like the bombing-raids of modern warfare) at the destruction of
the enemy's sources of supply in this case food. Each year the Spartans
invaded Attica, devastated the crops, cut down olive-trees, burnt farms,
and departed home again. From the shelter of their walls the Athenians
watched the havoc, restive at their own impotence. But Pericles would
not risk a battle, and the best he could do was to send a naval squadron
circling the Peloponnese and making occasional "commando raids" on
coastal districts. In short, it was what the Americans would have called
a "phoney war."

Then early in the second year came one of those unpredictable catas-
trophes which upset the best-laid plans. The city of Athens was crowded
with refugees; even the space between the Long Walls was given up to
them. The congestion was highly insanitary, and when plague broke out
at the port, it spread like wildfire. Nothing worse could have happened;
and so devastating were the effects in loss of life, lowering of physical
stamina and still more of morale, that they must be counted among the
major causes deciding the issue of the war. Thucydides' account of it is a

1 Pericles actually forecast that the Corinthian fleet would be unable to venture out of
port even for battle-practice.

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masterpiece both for its diagnosis of symptoms and its psychological
insight. It shall be summarized here.

"The Plague," he says, "came from Egypt; and starting at the Piraeus
it spread up to the city where the death-roll was soon very heavy. The
seizure was alarmingly sudden. At one moment a man would be in
normal health and the next moment sick of the Plague. It began in the
head and worked downwards, first a burning forehead, blood-shot eyes,
bleeding of tongue and throat, and a foetid breath. Next it passed to the
chest, causing hoarseness and a hacking cough. Finally it laid hold on the
stomach, where it produced vomiting and convulsive retching. The skin
went a livid pink and broke out in ulcers. Fevered patients could not
endure the touch of even the flimsiest clothes, but stripped naked and
often threw themselves into cold water. Their thirst was unquenchable.
The strange thing, however, was that the body remained unwasted; and
death supervened usually after eight or nine days from internal
inflammation. Many who recovered lost fingers or toes, and some even
their eyes. Others were left with memory blank, unable to recollect even
their own identity. One uncanny feature of the whole visitation was that
animals and birds of prey avoided the corpses or died after making their
meal on them. Doctors were powerless. Friends were nervous of approach-
ing the stricken, and whole families perished without any to care for
them. Only the few who recovered dared make the venture; for a second
attack never proved fatal, and such persons fondly imagined that they
were now immortal and could never die of any other complaint.

"An added horror was the condition of intense overcrowding. No
houses were available, and the refugees from the countryside had made
their quarters in hutments stifling as ovens in the summer weather.
Corpses lay in heaps; wretches lingering between life and death littered
the roadways, crowded round the fountains or bivouacked in the temple-
closes. All barriers of convention broke down. No one cared what was
sacred or forbidden ground. Old funeral customs were ignored. Families
which had already suffered many losses and so had run short of proper
materials were driven to the most shameless shirts. Sometimes they would
pile their own dead on a pyre prepared for another and set it ablaze. If
too late for this, they would fling their burden on the top of the smoulder-
ing carcass and run for it.

"The moral breakdown was complete. Men felt free to gratify instincts
which their hypocrisy had hitherto veiled. All around them they saw
fantastic reversals of fortune, rich men dying and paupers stepping in
their property. Now,, they felt, was the golden chance to enjoy a good
time, since neither life nor wealth could last long. What purpose in

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sacrificing themselves to an ideal, when before the world knew of their
sacrifice, they might themselves be dead? So a reckless hedonism was the
general mood; law was scoffed at; and the vanity of religion demonstrated
by the mortality around them. The thought of retribution held no terrors
when the sinner believed he had but a few days to live. The sentence of
doom was hanging over him; and before it descended, he had best make
the most of life's sweets."

The Athenians never recovered from the effects of the plague. It is
estimated that a quarter of the population died. The survivors were
warped and embittered. They resorted, as we shall see, to policies of
brutal revenge incredible in earlier days. Their balance was lost and they
veered erratically between moods of feverish optimism or sullen despair.
Worst of all Pericles, the man who had so long held them together, had
died; and without his guiding hand, they began to fall into two opposed
factions. To call these democrats "and aristocrats is to create a false im-
pression. It would be more accurate to speak of the mercantile element
and the landed element. The latter, both peasant and large proprietor
alike, were hard hit by the Spartan raids. The destruction of their farms
and orchards was more than they could swallow, and, like "Mr. Playfair"
in Aristophanes' comedy, they clamoured for peace. The mercantile
class, on the other hand, were evidently making a good thing out of the
war. The chance of crushing Corinth was not to be missed; and they
were bent on seeing the struggle through.

It was not the least tragedy of the plague that it must have removed
men of promise capable of succeeding Pericles in the leadership of
Athens. As things were, the choice was narrowed; and the leadership was
disputed between two representatives of the opposing factions, each of
whom typified the vices as well as the virtues of his class.

Nicias, the leader of the landed element, was the perfect "gentleman."
"No man of his time,*' says Thucydides, "strove harder for an ideal/'
But, as no doubt the historian himself recognized, it was a very limited
ideal. Nicias, so he tells us, "passed his life in the regular observance of
religious duties, walking in the path of justice and giving provocation to
no man." At the same time, as we happen to know, his social outlook,
from a modern standpoint at least, was deplorable. He lived partly on the
proceeds of a thousand slaves whom he hired out to the State and who
were set to work in the Laureum silver-mines under indescribable condi-
tions. Few men, however, have it in them to rise above the moral stan-
dards of their age; and our own ancestors with much less excuse lived on
the sweated labour of infants drafted into industry from the public work-
houses. Be this as it may, Nicias was greatly respected in his own day.

no

He was essentially a "safe man," honest, painstaking and cautious to a
fault.

The mercantile or democrat spokesman, Cleon, was a man of a very
different stamp. A leather-merchant by trade, he had received an up-to-
date education, and was deeply imbued with the new Sophist doctrines.
He employed all the most cynical arguments of pure self-interest, and
played up shamelessly to the worst instincts of the mob. On the platform
he was effective, but cheap. As he spoke, he would pace up and down,
ranting and shouting and pulling up his cloak to slap a bare thigh. "He
bellowed and roared," says Aristophanes, "like a torrent in spate." But
he possessed a good business head. He knew what he wanted and he had
drive; and since both Aristophanes and Thucydides entertained a personal
grievance against him, it may be that they judged him too harshly.

As a commercialism Cleon saw one thing very clearly. Without her
grip on the Aegean, Athens was lost. It was not merely that sea-borne
trade, and in particular the through-transit of corn from the Black Sea,
was essential to her economy. Since the outbreak of war the tribute paid
by the subject-states was more than ever needed to finance her fleet. A
fresh movement of secession would therefore be fatal. This was the
Achilles' heel of Pericles' whole strategy; and the enemy, too, were well
aware of the fact. From the outset the Spartans had proclaimed their
intention of "setting Hellas free"; and when in 428 the island of Lesbos
came out in revolt, they sent a general over with promise of help to come.
With Athens in command of the sea, that help never arrived, and Lesbos
was reduced. The question of her punishment came up before the
Assembly at Athens; and if only to give a warning to others, an example,
it was felt, must be made of the rebels. Cleon did not as yet hold any
official position; but it was he who moved the motion for the terrible
sentence which the Assembly duly passed. A swift galley was dispatched
to carry the order that every male in the island should be killed. Next
day a fresh meeting was called, and the decision reviewed. Cleon stuck
to his point, "If, right or wrong, Athens intended to rule, then Lesbos,
right or wrong, must be punished. Treat her," he said, "as she would
have treated you." Mercifully his plea failed. A second galley was sent
after the first, and arrived just in time to countermand the massacre.

The war dragged on; when three years later terms might have been
had, Cleon procured their rejection; and immediately after came the
crowning chance to turn the tables on his opponents. It arose from an
accidental military diversion. Demosthenes, Athens' ablest general, while
on a cruise off the Western Peloponnese, put in his fleet for shelter at
Pylos, a little bay on Spartan territory. It seems to have struck him that

in

the place might be made a rallying-point for malcontent Helots. On the
north side of the bay was an impregnable peninsula, and this he proceeded
to fortify. The Spartans reacted promptly. They attacked the peninsuk
from the seaward, only to be driven off; but meanwhile most unwisely
they landed a garrison on the island of Sphacteria which covered the
mouth of the bay. The Athenian fleet, which had continued its cruise,
then returned, and the Spartan garrison, some four hundred strong, was
cut off on the island. Such, however, was the prestige of Spartan invinci-
bility that the Athenians dared not land and attack them. The fleet simply
blockaded the island, and it was hoped that starvation would soon finish
them off.

Meanwhile at home the populace chafed at such dilatory tactics; and
one day Cleon got up in the Assembly and declared that, if only he were
one of the Generals, Sphacteria would soon be taken. Nicias, answering
for the Ministry of which he was a member, replied, "Go then, and take
it yourself." Cleon at first tried to back out, then accepted the post. He
was no fool, and in undertaking the task he must have seen his way to
its successful completion. In a recent campaign in the region of Naupactus,
Demosthenes had gained some experience of mountain warfare; and it
seems likely enough that he had let Cleon know that similar tactics might
discomfit even the "invincible" Spartans. At any rate, preparations of a
quite novel sort were at once set on foot. An enormous force of bowmen,
slingers and other light-armed troops was collected; and when these were
landed on the island, the Spartans were hopelessly at a disadvantage.
When they charged, their nimble opponents took to the hills; when they
retired, they were pursued with volleys of missiles. By the end of the
day they surrendered. Cleon had boasted that he would have them back
as prisoners at Athens within three weeks; and now to everyone's surprise
he had kept his word.

From this time on, Cleon was the heart and soul of the Athenian war-
effort. He put the screw on the subject-states to the point of trebling their
tribute-assessment. Working closely with Demosthenes he abandoned
the sound Periclean strategy of avoiding land-combat. First the two
planned a surprise attack on Megara, by which, however, they succeeded
only in capturing its port. Then they tried a full-scale invasion of Boeotia
intending perhaps to repeat the tactics by which Pericles had once gained
full control over the Corinthian Gulf. Here, however, they overreached
themselves; and the Athenian infantry was badly cut up in a pitched battle
near Delium.

Meanwhile, in the same year 424, a dangerous unrest had been growing
among the tributary-states, this time among the cities of the Chalcidic

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Peninsula in the North-West Aegean. Here at least Sparta could send
help overland; and Brasidas, her one audacious commander, hurried
north with an army. Cleon went after him, and in the fighting which
ensued both leaders were killed (422).

Negotiations had for some time been in progress between the com-
batants. Sparta felt keenly the capture of her men at Pylos; for so small
was the number of her fully enfranchised citizens that even the loss of
three hundred was a grave blow to her morale. At Athens Nicias, who
on Cleon's death had regained control of the Assembly, cannot have
omitted to underline the danger-signal of the Chalcidic revolt. So in 421
a Peace was arranged by no means unfavourable to Athens. But, as any
eye could see, the real issue remained undecided; and the peace proved
no more than a breathing-space before the struggle was resumed.

2. THE SYRACUSAN EXPEDITION

With Cleon gone, the popular party at Athens needed a new spokes-
man, and they were to find him in a man of very different antecedents.
Pericles had left a nephew, by name Alcibiades. The young man had all
the natural gifts and graces of an aristocrat. He was outrageously good-
looking, with great personal charm, and wits as sharp as a needle. "When
I was your age," Pericles had once lectured him, "I used to think myself
clever too." "How I wish, dear uncle," was the quick retort, "that I had
known you at your cleverest." Yet, vain and impudent as he was,
Alcibiades fascinated everyone. He was Socrates' favourite pupil; but all
the good he got from it was to learn the subtleties of argument, and he
used such intellectual skill as he acquired for his own purely selfish ends.
He played shamelessly to the gallery, and once, it is said, feeling himself
somewhat out of the limelight, he cut off his dog's tail for no other
purpose than to make folk talk of him. He knew exactly how to handle
the Assembly. The mob idolized him; for, though at one time he was
driven into exile and played traitor to his country, they received him
back and replaced him in power. "They love him and hate him, but have
him they must," was Aristophanes' verdict. "Charlatan and genius in
one," he was to prove for the next fifteen years the evil demon of Athens.
In the aftermath of Nicias 5 Peace, Sparta's position in the Peloponnese
was much weakened. Argos, never a member of her Confederacy, and
hitherto a neutral in the war, was watching for the chance to pay off old
scores. Among the Confederacy, too, there was grave dissatisfaction,
especially among the Arcadians of the central plains. So the Argives and
Arcadians got together; and looking round for an ally, they made
overtures to Athens. About the same time, as it so happened, Sparta

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approached her too. Among the Athenians opinion was divided. Nicias
favoured the old Cimonian policy of co-operation with Sparta. But
Alcibiades saw the opportunity for a coup. By an unscrupulous subterfuge
he persuaded the Spartan envoys to contradict themselves and then
denounced them to the Assembly for playing a double game. This
clinched the matter. The Spartan envoys were sent packing, and Alcibiades
was empowered to lead an army into the Peloponnese and join hands
with Arcadia and Argos.

In a pitched battle fought near the Arcadian town Mantinea, this
formidable combination came within an ace of success, but at the last
moment victory eluded them, and so Alcibiades went home with nothing
to show for the audacious gamble. It was a sad reflection on the Athenian
populace that they learnt nothing by the lesson. Next year his victory in
the chariot-race at Olympia restored the young adventurer's prestige,
and in 416 he was once more in power. The true character of his leader-
ship was soon revealed by an act as mean and brutal as any in history.
Lying east of the Peloponnese was a little island called Melos. It had
never been a member of Athens' empire, but recently Cleon had included
its name on the tribute-list a pure fiction on his part; for, if Melos paid
tribute to anyone, she had paid it to Sparta. On the strength of this,
however, the unfortunate island was now denounced as a renegade. Its
protestations were of no avail. The Athenians captured its capital by
blockade, and then horrible to relate slaughtered all the male inhabi-
tants and sold the women and children as slaves.

The motive of this stroke was doubtless to intimidate would-be rebels
among the tributary states; but nothing can excuse it. Something must
be put down to the effects of the Plague; and the intoxication of power
was working on minds overwrought by that bitter experience. The
Athenians had lost their poise, and next year on Alcibiades' instigation
they undertook a fresh adventure of almost unbelievable bravado.

Sicily, as we have already seen, had long been a flourishing centre of
trade. Its many cities colonized in the first instance from Greece were
completely independent; and thanks to their favoured commercial
position they had developed a brilliant and luxurious culture of their own.
They enjoyed comforts which even Ionia might have envied. They had
produced men of learning who had made important contributions to
Greek intellectual life. They could be stout fighters, too, when the need
arose. In 480 the year of Salamis Carthage, the great maritime power
of North Africa, had attacked the island; but, like the Greek states of the
Motherland, die Sicilians had shown that they too could unite at a crisis,
and they had driven the invaders back. But, die crisis once over, they had

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again fallen to quarrelling. Syracuse, the most powerful among them,
had begun to domineer over the rest; and in 416, Segesta, thus threatened,'
appealed for Athens' protection.

It was not the first time that the Athenians had entertained the idea, of
interfering in Sicily. The island's wealth offered a strong temptation, and
when Segesta's appeal came up for the Assembly's discussion, it was
hotly debated. Nicias, cautious as always, discountenanced action. But
Alcibiades took a different view. His uncle's strategy, as we have seen,
had been aimed largely at crippling Corinth. Pressed to its logical con-
clusion, such a policy could best succeed by the conquest of Sicily and
the destruction, once and for all, of Corinth's westerly trade. Commercial
expansion, now more than ever, was a necessity to Athens' very existence;
and with the Adriatic as well as the Aegean in her grip, she would be in a
position to defy not Sparta and Corinth alone, but the still more dangerous
enemy, her own economic stringency. Alcibiades, therefore, had little
difficulty in persuading his countrymen to answer Segesta's call and send
an expedition against Syracuse. He argued that most of the island could
be won by diplomatic action alone. He even hinted that the conquest of
Carthage might not be beyond the bounds of possibility. Above all, he
painted a glowing picture of the commercial openings there awaiting the
mercantile class; and when his advice was taken and the Assembly's
decision made, many businessmen undertook to accompany the expedi-
tion and glean what profits they could. In their mood of giddy optimism
the wealth of Sicily was already theirs.

Preparations were complete, and the expedition was ready to sail when
an extraordinary event occurred in Athens. Lining the streets of the city
were numerous stone pillars sacred to Hermes, the god of bounds and
ways; and one morning the inhabitants awoke to find that all but one of
these had been defaced during the night. Such sacrilege was a terrible
shock to the superstititious populace. Who the culprits were, no one
could tell. The likelihood is that they were enemy agents from Corinth
or Megara. But, though he of all men had least to gain by the expedition's
postponement, Alcibiades was suspected. Meanwhile, investigations pro-
ceeded, and various informers came forward. Alcibiades' enemies decided
to hold their hand until he was safely out of the way.

So at last the great fleet of warships and transports was permitted to
sail, and Thucydides has described its departure in a dramatic passage:
"Early in the morning the men made their way to the Piraeus and began
to man the ships, and the whole population went with them. Some came
to take farewell of a friend or a kinsman, some of their sons. Hope and
sorrow filled their hearts as they passed down the road. The prospect of

conquering Sicily gladdened them. But tears rose at the thought of the
long voyage ahead and the doubt whether they would ever see their
loved ones again. The imminence of the parting brought home to them
perils of which they had never so much as thought when voting the
expedition. Soon, however, the sight of the great armada in all its strength
and brilliance revived their drooping spirits. It was a triumph of organiza-
tion, and no armament so costly or so magnificent had ever before gone
forth from any city in Greece. ... At last the ships were manned and
everything aboard was in readiness. Then silence was proclaimed by a
bugle-call, and all with one voice offered up the traditional prayers
recited not ship by ship, but by the voice of a single herald, all the rest
repeating the words after him. On deck men and officers brought out
vessels of silver and gold and poured libations of wine to the gods; while
on land a vast throng of citizens and friendly spectators also joined in the
prayers. Finally the crews raised the war-chant; and, the ceremonial over,
they put out to sea. For a while they sailed in single file, and then the
ships raced each other as far as Aegina!" As Thucydides knew, when he
wrote those lines, none of them would ever come back.

In its allocation of the high command the Assembly had arrived at a
compromise, and it would be hard to imagine anything more foolish.
Along with Alcibiades, as chief sponsor of the campaign, and Lamachus a
plain non-political soldier, they had appointed Nicias who had made it
abundantly clear that he disapproved of the whole adventure. The result
was that when they arrived in Sicily, the three commanders could not
agree on a plan of action. So the year 415 was frittered away, and the
advantage of surprise was lost and with it probably the best hope of
success. Meanwhile Alcibiades, the one brilliant brain among the three,
was recalled to stand his trial for sacrilege. He took no risks, but fled to
Sparta; and, worse still, when he got there, he gave the enemy the hint
that they would do well to send a general of their own to Sicily.

In the spring of 414 the Athenians began the campaign in earnest.
Their task was much facilitated by the geographical situation of Syracuse.
Its famous roadstead a splendid semi-circular bay with its entrance
partially closed by a projecting peninsular promised adequate shelter for
their ships; and the city itself, lying north of the bay, was dominated
from behind by a high ridge, known as Epipolae. This ridge, when they
landed, the Athenians quickly rushed by a surprise assault, and here they
were admirably placed for pursuing the traditional tactics of siege the
circumvallation of the town. One wall they started to drive southwards
to the harbour edge, another northwards to the sea-coast. If completed,
these walls would have cut Syracuse off from supplies or reinforcement

116

by land. The defenders, however, by cutting across the northerly wall
with a cross-wall of their own, prevented if from reaching the sea; and,
as things turned out, the gap thus left open saved the city.

For just at this moment a Spartan general, Gylippus, sent on Alcibiadcs'
advice, had arrived in Sicily; and through the gap he and the army he
had collected managed to slip in. His presence put new vigour into the
defence, and it was soon the Athenians' turn to be cooped up in their
camp near the edge of the Great Harbour. Their situation became very
uncomfortable. Syracusan cavalry scoured the country behind them.
Their forage-parries were constantly harried. Lamachus had been killed
in the earlier fighting; and Nicias, now left in sole command, was a very
sick man, suffering from a painful disease of the kidneys. He sent home a
plaintive appeal for reinforcements, and, though Athens had already sent
out the flower of her fleet, she answered the call. So soon Demosthenes,
with another large squadron of ships and transports, was on the way to
Sicily. His trained eye quickly took the measure of the situation. The
heights of Epipok had been lost since Gylippus* arrival, and their
recapture seemed the one hope. A night attack was launched, and the
heights scaled by moonlight. All at the first went well; but in the flush of
success the Athenians lost direction and, falling into disorder, were hurled
back again. After this failure they were left with no alternative but to
abandon the campaign. Preparations for departure were made, and all
was in readiness when an eclipse of the moon occurred. Nicias' astrologers
at once stepped in with a demand for postponement, and the superstitious
general complied.

The days passed, and it soon became doubtful whether the Athenian
host would get away at all. The enemy had now thrown a boom across
the harbour mouth and were planning to give battle within the harbour
itself. Here in the narrow waters they foresaw that the Athenian skill of
manoeuvre could not tell; and, to gain extra power for head-on ramming,
they had specially strengthened the prows of their ships. Success in a
preliminary skirmish encouraged their hopes, and they decided on an
all-out effort to destroy the Athenian fleet. So the battle was joined, and
Thucydides* account of it shall be quoted in full.

"As the battle swung both armies watched from the land, and their
states of mind well reflected the tensity of the struggle the islanders
eager to add to their laurels, the invaders dreading yet worse things to
come. The Athenians' solitary hope was their fleet, and the torment of
their anxiety defies description. The ebb and flow of the conflict, too,
greatly affected its aspect from the shore. The range of vision was so close
that impressions of it varied as viewed from different angles. From one

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point they would see their own men winning, and taking heart they
would offer up prayers for deliverance. Elsewhere matters might seem to
go against them, and then they would moan and cry aloud, more un-
manned by the spectacle than the combatants themselves. Where the
battle seemed indecisive, it was worst of all. The prolonged suspense was
agonizing. From moment to moment their salvation or doom seemed to
hang by a hair, and they kept swaying their bodies this way and that way
as their spirits rose or fell. So during this phase of the engagement, a
strange medley of sounds went up from the Athenian Camp shouts of
victory, groans of defeat, and all the varied ejaculations of a great host in
mortal peril. The state of mind among the combatants was not much
different, till at last the long struggle ended. Bit by bit the Syracusans
drove the Athenians back; then gathering themselves for a last triumphant
onslaught, they hunted them to the land amid a hubbub of cheering.
Crews that escaped interception by sea ran aground where best they
could, and clambered out into the camp. The babel on shore ceased, and
as one man the entire Athenian host gave vent to its dismay in a loud and
desolate wail. Some rallied to the incoming vessels or ran to man the
wall. But uppermost in most minds was the question how they now
could get away. Their plight much resembled the plight of their own
victims at Pylos. There the Spartans on the island had been doomed by
the destruction of their ships, and now for the Athenians escape by land
was equally impossible short of some miracle."

So Nicias and Demosthenes led the army away overland. For some
days they struggled on in a south-westerly direction till they were cut off
at a river-crossing and all slaughtered or captured. The prisoners were
taken to Syracuse and housed in the stone-quarries under Epipolae. Many
died a lingering death from privation and exposure; and after some weeks
the survivors were sold as slaves.

3. THE LAST PHASE

With the Sicilian disaster the whole war-situation changed. The
Athenians had lost the best part of their fleet, and, for the time being at
least, the control of the Aegean had passed out of their hands. The
subject-states began to revolt Chios, Lesbos, Miletus, and, a little kter,
Rhodes. The enemy, too, were now in a position to render the rebels
assistance. But their difficulty was to find ships and, still more, rowers, in
adequate numbers. Corinth, of course, provided her share; but the
Spartans themselves were not a seagoing race. Here fate, however, played
into their hands. Persia had never forgotten her lost Ionian possessions,
and she now saw her chance for their recovery. So the Great King once

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again entered the lists not with fleets and armies, but with the more
potent weapon of gold. His intention was to pky off one group of Greek
states against the other until both were exhausted, and for the present his
cue was to finance Sparta and enable her to hire rowers and organize an
adequate fleet.

Athens' position seemed desperate. "Whichever way they looked,"
says Thucydides, "there was trouble. They were overwhelmed by their
calamity. Unutterable consternation seized them. The city had lost the
flower of its youth and there was none to replace them. In the docks there
was a woeful scarcity of ships; no crews to man them, no money in the
treasury, and no visible prospect of deliverance." Worse still, the Spartans,
acting on Alcibiades' advice, had again invaded Attica and built a per-
manent fort at Decelea scarcely a day's march from the city. This hit the
inhabitants in more ways than one. Their slaves ran away to find sanctuary
with the enemy. Their cattle, placed in Eubcea for safety, could no longer
be brought overland. It was scarcely even safe to venture outside the
walls unarmed.

But with astonishing resilience the democracy pulled itself together,
and a permanent commission "of elder men" was appointed to advise
the Assembly on policy. None the less the political atmosphere in Athens
remained very tense; and under the surface trouble was brewing. The
aristocrat reactionaries were restive, and secret clubs were forming. Here
all the blame for the Sicilian debacle was laid on the democrat mob, and
discussions took place how best to end its intolerable mishandling of
affairs. There was even whispered talk of a coup Sitat.

Hitherto Athens had escaped those extremes of class faction which in
some Greek states had led to violent struggles for power. But the impact
of war, as Thucydides said, produces catastrophic results and his diagnosis
of such internal stresses (quoted already at the beginning of this book)
throws a vivid light on the mentality of the times.

"With the growth of the revolutionary spirit," he says, "stratagems
became more ingenious and methods of revenge more extravagant.
Words lost their familiar meaning. A new set of circumstances demanded
a new use of terms. So now the reckless fanatic became the loyal party
man/ Cautious statesmanship was 'a cloak for cowardice'; moderation
'the weakling's subterfuge,' and intelligence was written off as 'in-
effective.' Act like a maniac and you were styled 'a real man.' Walk
warily and your fellow-conspirators set you down as a renegade. The
hectoring bully never failed of a hearing, and any criticism of him was
suspect. Claims of party took precedence over family ties; for the partisan
knows no restraints of conscience or decency. And how should he, seeing

119

that associations of this type are based on anti-social ambitions, and their
strength springs not from the moral law but from partnership in crime.
"So friendly advances from one party merely met with curt rebuff,
and a pact, if made, could not last. Whichever side first summoned
courage to strike, took a pride in the success of their treachery. To have
triumphed in a battle of wits was a feather in their cap. For it is always
more flattering to be thought an ingenious knave than a virtuous fool.

"The compelling motive behind all this was Power, pursued partly for
notoriety's sake, partly for its material rewards; and die element of com-
petition gave an added zest to the game. It mattered little what plausible
slogans political leaders might adopt. One side might talk of 'Aristocracy's
genius for compromise'; the other of 'Democracy's egalitarian principles/
But such lip-service could not disguise the truth. It was the control of the
commonwealth that both sides coveted, and these rivals stuck at nothing
in the struggle for power. In their lust for revenge all conventions of
justice and patriotism were forgotten. It was enough if their party-spite
could be gratified by some savage sentence or violent coup d'etat.

"Religion had no hold, though cant might have its uses in white-
washing their crimes. The neutral received short shrift at the hands of
either party. Both alike resented his refusal to join them and share the
risks they ran. Sincerity (which is no small part of idealism) was killed by
mockery, and the atmosphere of general suspicion made conciliation
impossible. Nobody would trust an oath and nobody would keep one.
Nothing was taken for granted, and having lost faith in human nature,
men took their own precautions. The second-rate intelligence usually
came off best. Conscious of his inferiority as speaker or diplomat, such a
man was afraid that his more adroit opponents would get their blow in
first; so he struck ruthlessly. The abler man, disdaining practical pre-
cautionsas your intellectual will was thus caught napping, often with
fatal results."

Then follows a gruesome description of the scenes at Corcyra, where
the faction-struggle seems to have reached its worst violence. No mercy
was shown to defeated opponents. Some were slaughtered in temples
where they had fled for sanctuary; others walled up and left to die of
starvation. Finally, their corpses were flung "crosswise into waggons"
and were carted away like lumber.

Hianks to the good sense of her citizens, such horrors were never
enacted at Athens But even there passions ran deep and there was much

i%f 5 th Ugh r&sus ! & te Mmself was not there to witness it i

120

something at least of what he telis about class-antagonism must probably
stand true of his countrymen.

The trouble started, it appears, with Alcibiades. He had tired of exile
in Sparta, and crossing to Asia Minor had taken refuge with the Great
King's satrap Tissaphernes. He was now anxious to get home again, but
knowing that the Athenian democracy would not take him back, he
decided to intrigue for the establishment of an oligarchic regime. He first
approached some officers of the Athenian fleet then stationed at Samos,
and through them got in touch with the malcontent aristocrats at home.
There the leading spirits were the out-and-out oligarchist Antiphon and
the more moderate Theramenes, an adroit trimmer nicknamed "the
Buskin" a boot which would fit either foot.

Plans were cunningly laid. The Assembly was summoned to meet at
Colonus. This spot lay a mile or so outside the city walls where, with the
Spartans at Decelea, it was unsafe to venture unarmed; and only the
better-class citizens with full soldier's equipment would therefore attend.
At the meeting a motion for reform was put forward, and it was resolved
to set up a new Council of four hundred members. These were mostly
drawn from the middle-class element, but among them were a number
of the oligarch plotters. The same evening the newly appointed Four
Hundred entered the Council House, and with armed men at their back
evicted its constitutional occupants. The ostensible programme of the
"reformers" was go back to the pre-Cleisthenic form of government
from which the democrat rabble would be excluded. The Assembly was
to consist of a limited number of citizens chosen on a property-qualifica-
tion, and, in fact, a list of five thousand names was promised. But it was
never published.

The real intention of the conspirators soon showed itself. They meant
to let the Spartans in and to make peace on condition, of course, that
they themselves continued in power. Their first step was to secure, if
possible, the control of the port. So, though other excuses were made for
its building, work was begun on a fort near the Piraeus-entrance. But now
came a hitch. The crews of the fleet at Samos were staunch democrats
to a man, and, when they heard of these doings at home, they came out
in mutiny, deposed their officers, and threatened to sail back and over-
throw the new regime. Alcibiades, seeing that such a step would leave
Ionia at the enemy's mercy, dissuaded them, but their protest had served
to brace public opinion at Athens. There suspicion of the new govern-
ment^ intention was growing. The promised Assembly had never been
called, and even the more moderate men began to have their doubts.
One day a prominent oligarch was assassinated in the market-place, and

121

opposition suddenly gathered to a head. There was a rush for the Piraeus.
The half-finished fort was dismantled, and when a few days later the
Spartan fleet appeared, its commander must have seen that the con-
spirators' schemes had miscarried, and it sailed away again.

A meeting of the Assembly was now called and it was decided to set
up a democracy of limited franchise such as Theramenes and the more
moderate section had all along intended "The best administration/'
Thucydides says, "that Athens ever enjoyed."

Among the first acts of the newly constituted Assembly was the recall
of Alcibiades now the last hope of a despairing people. The outlook was
undeniably bleak. Revolt was spreading. Eubcea had gone, and, what
was worse, so too had Byzantium at the Black Sea entrance. Its recovery
was vital, for there lay the corn-route, the life-line of Athens. So, when
Mindarus the Spartan admiral moved up to Byzantium's aid, the Athenian
fleet from Samos followed him. A couple of engagements were fought,
and the Spartans completely destroyed. Thus the command of the sea
passed decisively to Athens once more.

So the agonizing seesaw of fortune went on. At one moment victory
itself seemed almost in sight. At the next the advantage was thrown away
by the Athenian mob's incurable folly. For the government by limited
franchise had been short-lived, and full democracy was now restored.
The worst symptom of its demoralization was an inability to back up its
leaders. With all his faults, Alcibiades was a capable strategist. He recovered
Byzantium. He was pressing the naval campaign in Ionia; and there by a
stroke of ill-luck, one of his lieutenants suffered a defeat. It was not a
major reverse, but it was the first real success that the Spartans had won
at sea, and the Athenians were furious. They vented their wrath by
dismissing Alcibiades, and his place was taken by a new demagogue,
Cleophon. This man was a lyre-maker by trade, a complete vulgarian,
much less able than Cleon, but possessing something of Cleon's energy.
An immense effort was made. New ships were built with feverish haste.
Slaves were drafted into the rowing crews and even young aristocrats
took a place on the bench beside them.

Hopes rose once more when the new armada put out. Here at last, it
was felt, was a prospect of ending the struggle; and sure enough a victory,
though not a decisive victory, was won off the Arginusae Islands near
Lesbos. Towards the end of the battle, however, a strong gale had sprung
up, and the victors failed to save the crews of their disabled vessels. At
Athens public opinion was deeply moved by their loss, and the admirals
eight in number, were impeached in the Assembly for negligence.
Evidence was not seriously considered, and it was proposed to pass the

122

death-sentence upon all eight en bloc. This was a grossly illegal procedure,
and Socrates, the philosopher, that day chairman of the presiding com-
mittee, raised objections. He was overruled and the sentence was passed.

Peace could now have been had for the asking. Sparta was ready to
grant terms, provided Athens abandoned all claim to her lost dominions.
Cleophon staggered drunk into the Assembly and defeated the proposal.
Yet, even as things were, the war need not have been lost, had not Sparta
discovered a leader of exceptional talent. His name was Lysander, a dour
unpleasant character, but ambitious and determined. His skill as a naval
commander had already been proved in the battle which led to Alcibiades'
fall What was still stranger in a Spartan, he was something of a diplo-
matist; and he won the confidence of the young Persian prince Cyrus,
who had been sent down by the Great King his father, to keep an eye on
the struggle. With Cyrus* financial assistance a better fleet had been built,
and fresh rowers hired. Then Lysander struck. Like Mindams, he made
for the Sea of Marmora, and so threatened Athens' supplies. There the
Athenians met him, and at Aegospotami or the Goat's River the decisive
battle was fought. They were beaten.

All was now over, or as good as over. Cleophon, it is true, still refused
to make peace, and it was left for Theramenes to go to Sparta and treat.
Months passed, while die Athenians slowly starved. At length, in 404,
they capitulated. Their Long Walls were demolished; all but twelve of
their ships were surrendered, and not a remnant of their Empire was left
them. Thirty pro-Spartan "quislings" were put in charge of the govern-
ment. Thucydides himself, though he lived to see the tragedy, never
carried his history to this point. Perhaps he had not the heart. The
nemesis of power-lust the nemesis which he must so surely have feared,
and perhaps even foreseen had overtaken his country. No need to write
the final act; the drama was closed. Athens "was fallen, was fallen, that
great city."

123

CHAPTER VIII
DEMOCRACY'S BALANCE-SHEET

Tf a people is to be judged by success or failure in solving its own
JL particular problems, then the Spartans had doubly succeeded. It was
not merely that they had won the war against Athens more perhaps
through good luck and their opponents' mistakes than through merit of
their own. What in the long run was of far greater importance, they had
attained through the Lycurgan system a stability both economic and
political which was without parallel among other Greek states. But this
they had done by deliberately sacrificing what most Greeks chiefly
prized all intellectual activity, all cultural amenities, even family life
itself. It is always well to ask at what cost security is worth while.

The Athenians had pursued a very different road. From the moment
when Solon launched them on the course of commercial and industrial
expansion, they were committed to living by their wits. Democratic
development was the inevitable sequel, and with it the need for higher
standards of mental efficiency. The intellectual activity of the preceding
aristocratic age had been speculative and theoretic, scarcely touching the
realities of everyday life. But, when the Sophists undertook to educate
the average man and to bring intellect to bear on practical problems, the
highly sceptical spirit of Ionian enquiry was automatically transferred to
the realm of affairs. It was an easy step to cast doubt on traditional ethics,
and the cynical appeal to self-interest was glibly employed to justify
whatever policy the need of the moment might suggest. So during the
course of the fifth century the temper of the Athenian people steadily
hardened, and in the attempt to solve their economic and political
problems they were forced to a progressive abandonment of their liberal
ideals.

How Athenian Democracy had exploited the tributary members of
their Empire, requires no further emphasis here. But within the city itself
there were classes whose contribution to the national economy was no
less essential and who in one degree or another were similarly sacrificed
to the interests of the citizen-body.

It is not always sufficiently recognized how large a part in the life of
Athens was played by her resident aliens or "metics." Yet, in the first

124

instance, we should remember, it was their exceptional skill or ability
that had been the raison d'etre of their invitation or admission to the
country. Some, like Lysias, took a high place in its cultural activities.
Others were teachers or musicians or artists. In industry and business
generally, they were indispensable. Among the contractors for one State-
undertaking (listed in an extant inscription), less than a third were
Athenian born, and among the craftsmen employed the proportion was
lower still. Metics had a virtual monopoly of the grain-trade. Some kept
factories which in part must have contributed to the vital production
for export.

Now originally, as we have seen, Solon had attracted these foreigners
to Athens by promise of full citizenship, and their presence was thus a
valuable asset both of man-power and finance. They served in army and
fleet. They paid the war-tax or capital levy, and, if specially rich, they
were liable for such burdens as the outfit of a warship or the production
of a tragedy. To what extent they were in practice admitted to political
rights is hard to say. What seems certain is that naturalization in the full
sense was rare and grew rarer as time went on. The Athenians, in fact,
became increasingly exclusive, and this illiberal tendency reached its
climax in the year 451. In that year a law was passed which removed from
die citizen-roll any man whose parents were not both Athenian-born.
The motive of this harsh measure can only be guessed. It seems likely that
the rapid growth of the citizen population had overtaxed its food-supply,
and that some check to further immigration seemed prudent; and beyond
this, it is not improbable that there was a real danger lest the Assembly
might be swamped by the alien element, and that the masses were jealous
of sharing their valued privileges with outsiders. Be that as it may, the
resident aliens, while still liable to all the duties of citizenship, were hence-
forth debarred from any hope either of enjoying its privileges themselves
or even of their descendants enjoying them. They could neither vote in
the Assembly, nor hold office, nor take any part in public life. Only
under special licence were they even permitted to carry their case into
the Courts. It speaks well for Athens that despite this one-sided arrange-
ment the metics still continued to value her commercial and cultural
advantages, and that in the course of the next century their number
actually increased.

But the effort of citizens and metics alone could not have sufficed to
balance Athenian economy, had it not been supplemented by the labour
of slaves. Of these, we may distinguish two classes, both in their different
ways essential to the community's life. First there were the menials kept
in die homes of the well-to-do. Such domestic staffs, composed mosdy of

125

females, but including some males, were often large. A very rich man
might keep fifty. The average citizen might have three. By the perform-
ance of the household tasks they set their master free for business or
political duties. Some were more directly helpful. The more intelligent
acted as copyists, secretaries or accountants. Others played the part of
"pedagogues" conducting their master's sons to school and back again. 1
Along with this type of slave may perhaps be grouped those skilled in
some handicraft building, carpentering, vase-painting, or what-not.
Such valuable assistants often worked side by side with the free artisans.

A Young Labourer. (From a vase-painting.)

The other class were engaged on mass-production in industry; and, as
the city's trade grew, the number of these "factory-slaves" increased.
Cephalus, the resident alien from Sicily, kept a workshop for manu-
facturing shields in which seven hundred hands were employed. About
their treatment little is known; but in the silver mines at Laureum condi-
tions must have been appalling. Into these were drafted slaves of the
rougher and more intractable type. The underground galleries along
which they had to crawl have been discovered. They measure little more
than two feet square. Iron shackles, too, have been found, and hand-

1 See Illustration, page 127.
126

lamps calculated to last for a ten-hour shift. The working of the mines
was leased by the state to contractors. Private individuals would hire out
slaves, for whom they had no personal use, to work in the mines
branded, like cattle, with their owner's name. In one Court-speech a
litigant describes how he got up before dawn one morning to walk down
to Laureum and collect the rent due to him on such a slave. Nicias, we
know, owned a thousand of them; and in all it is reckoned that twenty
times that number must have been employed. But the condition of these
and other industrial drudges troubled nobody's conscience. They were
regarded in die famous phrase of the philosopher Aristotle as "human

An elderly slave acts as "pedagogue" to a boy on the way to
a music-lesson.

instruments"; and indeed they performed in antiquity very much the
same function as is performed by the modern machine.

Not that the treatment of slaves at Athens was worse than elsewhere
in Greece. On the contrary, it was better. One Athenian writer said:
"Here slaves enjoy very considerable licence. They may not be struck.
They will not even make way for you in the street. Yet, if it seems odd
that we allow them to live in comfort and I might put it even higher
there is none the less good reason. It is that for a maritime power economic
considerations make it essential to humour skves. For, if a slave fears you
(as in Sparta he did), look what violent lengths he will go to. Rather

127

than that, it pays us to treat him more or less as one of ourselves." Though
punishments inflicted on slaves were often harsh, exceptional brutality,
especially if resulting in death, laid the assailant open to prosecution.
Manumission, if rare, was by no means unknown. Certainly, if we may
judge from Aristophanes' plays, the cheeky household slave was no down-
trodden creature. An epitaph on a slave-girl, written at a later age, shows
a further humanization of domestic relationships:

In body but in that alone
She was a slave in days agone,
But now her body too is free
To match her spirit's liberty.

Yet, even when viewed in the most favourable light, the institution
remains a hideous blot on ancient civilization. The Greeks themselves
were under no illusion. They knew what loss of liberty meant. "Half
manhood goes when slavery's day sets in" was a well-known saying
among them. But they drew a racial distinction. The great majority
of slaves were of barbarian origin, kidnapped by raiders either from
Thrace or from the southern coasts of Asia Minor. This appeared to
the Greeks right and proper, and Aristotle bluntly declared that
barbarian peoples were "by nature slavish" the argument of the
"Herren Volk." The enslavement of Greeks by Greeks, on the other
hand, was always regarded as something of an outrage. Later on, in the
time of Aristotle, a law was passed forbidding the purchase of Greek
prisoners of war. But in the fifth century unhappily, the tendency was all
the other way, and the deterioration of Athenian democracy's principles
was nowhere more clearly marked than when Melian islanders were
condemned by the Assembly to be sold into bondage. Hard as it is for the
individual to rise above the social standards of his age, it remains astonish-
ing that among all the thinkers and poets of Greece none ever seriously
questioned the necessity for slavery. But then not even St. Paul himself
would appear to have contemplated its abolition, and the mediaeval
Church acquiesced in the institution of serfdom.

One other class of person remains to be described. Women, needless to
say, took their full share according to their ability in the country's
economic activities. They were not much employed in agriculture except
at harvest time, and possibly the vintage. Occasionally, however, they
worked at crafts such as shoe-making. They kept inns, too, baked bread
and served as barmaids. Above all, they were the mainstay of the market.
There they stood at their booths, selling wine, figs, honey, vegetables,
perfumes, garlands, knick-knacks, and so forth. The corn-sellers were
notorious for the sharpness of their tongues, which would have done

128

credit to Billingsgate. But women's chief accomplishment was the making
of doth. They spun wool and wove it interminably in their homes. There
is an amusing description of one harassed householder with whom
fourteen peevish female relatives had taken up their quarters as war-
refugees. On someone's advice he set them to cloth-making, and the
result, we are told, was excellent. "They took their dinner while they
worked, and did not sup till all was over. From glum they became
cheerful; instead of scowling at one another, they had a glad look for all;
and they ended by loving their patron and he loved them for being so

A lady at her toilette, mirror in hand. (From a vase-painting.)

useful" Dressmakers existed, but only for the smart lady's benefit. In
general, it was unnecessary. The Greek's ordinary garments consisted of
two oblong pieces of cloth, one pinned round the body shirtwise and
caught up at the waist with a girdle, the other of thicker material thrown
over the shoulders like a Scottish plaid.

All that we have said about woman's life with the exception of
spinning and weaving applied only, however, to the working-class.
The wives and daughters of the gentry were actually in a worse position
than their poorer neighbours. This, oddly enough, was a direct result of
the law passed in 451. Previous to that, marriages with alien women had

129

been common enough, and Ionian ladies were notoriously attractive.
But, since under the new law the children of such marriages were debarred
from citizenship, these alien women sank into the position of courtesans.
They continued, as they had done in the past, to "go into society." They
mixed freely with the festive gatherings of males; some of them, like
Pericles' famous mistress Aspasia, won a high reputation for their charm
and their wit. But the legitimate wives were no longer able with propriety
to attend at these mixed gatherings. "The less heard of women in male
company the better, whether for good or for ill," was Pericles' harsh
advice. In other words, the respectable lady's position was henceforth to
be that of the "haus-frau" pure and simple. In the female quarters of her
home well away from the front door she lived a life of almost oriental
seclusion. It was not even thought decent for her to be seen out shopping.
If she ventured into the streets, she must have an attendant.

Meanwhile in the eyes of the law a woman had no independent status.
She was always the ward of some man father, brother, or husband.
Marriage came early, at fifteen or sixteen. It was a strictly business
arrangement between bridegroom and parents. Love-matches were as
yet unknown. It was the typically Greek view that a marriage based on a
cool and deliberate choice was better calculated to prosper than one under-
taken under the influence of passionate emotion. As mistress of the house,
the wife's days were spent in supervising the slaves and in other domestic
duties. One writer depicts the attempt of a liberal-minded husband to
educate his young wife. "When she came to me she was not yet fifteen.
She had been brought up, so to speak, in blinkers, and taught to ask no
questions. It was scarcely an education to learn how to weave or to weigh
out the yarn for her maids, though I am bound to say she was very well
up in cooking," and his first lecture ended as follows: "Prove yourself
my superior and nothing could please me better. I shall be your faithful
servant, and age will not diminish your influence over me. On the con-
trary, the better companion you make to me and the better you look
after our home and our children, the more we all shall think of you.
Everyone will admire you, not so much for your handsome looks as for
your sound practical ways."

The life of women was a dull life clearly, and from time to time
protests were raised. Euripides displayed real sympathy, and Pkto, the
philosopher, discussed the employment of women on an equal footing
with men, and their right to a share in the government. In one of Aristo-
phanes' comedies, too, we find an amusing skit on a "Women's Parlia-
ment" which would appear to have lacked point, had not some talk of
Feminism, been in the air. But these were solitary voices, and even if the

130

Then every hope
Went with die

stricter conventions were gradually broken down, female emancipation,
for the richer class at least, made no real headway. On the other hand, it
is not to be supposed that all women were unhappy, and a deep devotion
between husband and wife is often recorded, as in this touching epitaph.

O Atthis, who didst live for me,

On me thy last didst breathe
Source of my joy in -days gone by

Now likewise of my grief
Thou in sad slumber leav'st me lone

To mourn thy spirit blest,
Whose faithful head was never lat^

But on thy husband's breast
Without thee, Atthis, I am done,

For, when death took thee home,

we shared in life
tee to the tomb.

2

From what has been said it should be abundantly clear that Democracy
at Athens was, in fact, a minority rule. Leaving women aside, the adult
population of the city has been estimated roughly as follows:

50,000 citizens,

25,000 resident aliens,

55,000 slaves.

On this showing the enfranchised element represented considerably
less than one-half of the whole population, and, judged by present-day
standards, ancient democracy was thus subject to very grave limitations.
But history must be viewed in its true perspective, and within these
limitations there can be no doubt that the Athenians pursued and to a
large extent achieved, the democratic ideal. Freedom of speech and
thought was certainly their normal practice. Criticism of authority was
unhampered. Aristophanes could speak his mind frankly on policy and
make what fun he liked of politicians. 1 When Cleon on one occasion
protested, he met with no sympathy. Occasionally, it is true, exception
was taken to unorthodox religious beliefs. Shortly before the outbreak
of the Peloponnesian War, the philosopher, Anaxagoras, was arraigned
for impiety: had he not said dreadful things about the Sun that it was
"a red-hot stone much larger than the Peloponnese." He was heavily fined
and retired from Athens. The real motive behind the accusation, however,
was political. It was part of an attack upon Pericles 9 circle of which

1 It is hard to admire sufficiently the liberality and courage of those who selected the plays
for the Festival. What censor of to-day would permit, let alone promote, the production
of a play that advocated peace in the middle of a war or lampooned the commander-in-chief?

Anaxagoras was a member; and Phidias the sculptor also suffered.
Conservative-minded opponents, frustrated in the political field, had
adopted this mean method of having their revenge. After the close of the
war, Socrates, too, fell victim to a similar spite. Yet against this must be
set die fact that already for the better part of a life-time the pertinacious
old critic had been allowed complete freedom to carry on his discussions
and call in question every belief of contemporary society. Toleration was,
in fact, better understood in fifth-century Athens than at any epoch until
quite modern times.

In how many ways and with what genuine devotion the citizen of
Athens served the state has already been fully described; and it is here
more pertinent to enquire what he received in return for his service.
Chiefly, no doubt, the satisfaction of belonging to what he justifiably
believed to be the finest city in the world; but there were more material
benefits too. The State guaranteed and safeguarded the importation of
his food. It provided much employment, especially to men in the building
trade. It controlled all religious ceremonials and pageants. It organized
dramatic and other popular entertainments. The gymnasia were built and
laid out at the public expense; so too were the baths which adjoined them.

Social services were then, of course, as yet in their infancy; and under
Pericles* rule, as he himself boasted, their tendency was to reward indivi-
dual merit, not to subsidize failure or misfortune. Benefactors of the state,
among them successful athletes, were often voted free meals in the Town
Hall for life; and the sons of war-victims, as we learn from the Funeral
Speech, were brought up at the public expense. Humanitarianism, how-
ever, was not wholly lacking. Cripples were assisted by a dole; and we
possess an entertaining speech delivered in defence of his claim by a lame
man who was taxed with the needless extravagance of making journeys
on horse-back. From quite early days, too, the State hired doctors; one
practitioner was bribed away from a neighbouring island by the offer
of a rise in his salary. As the masses, moreover, learned to exert their
political power, they used it to make the rich pay for the poor. We have
mentioned already how a public fund was started, out of which a gratuity
was forthcoming for those who attended the theatre a privilege highly
prized by the more indigent; and the fee paid to jurors served after the
manner of a pension to the aged and infirm. But after Athens' defeat,
when her Empire was lost and the pinch of poverty became severe, there
was a growing tendency to extort less justifiable concessions; and even
attendance at the Assembly, was rewarded by a small payment. Money
was distributed, too, at other festivals besides the Dionysia; and any surplus
that accrued to the public exchequer was made over to the Theoric Fund

132

from which all such gratuities were paid. The rich complained bitterly
that the proletariate was becoming pauperized.

Yet it would be wrong to think of Athens as a Socialistic state.
Nowhere was individual effort and self-reliance more deliberately
encouraged. In education, especially, this principle was strictly observed.
All instruction intellectual, musical or gymnastic was left to the
initiative of free-lance teachers, and choice of schooling appears to have
lain entirely with parents' good sense. Yet the results were, to say the
least, remarkable. The enthusiasm aroused by the Sophists' lectures was
no mere flash in the pan. Intellectually the Athenians must have been the
most acute people who ever existed. A single incident is enough to prove
it. In one of Aristophanes' comedies there was a famous scene in which
-^Eschylus and Euripides were represented as engaged in a poetic dual.
Each criticized the other's works, parodied his style, discussed obscure
passages and, above all, bandied quotations with him. Yet it was by far
the most popular of all the dramatist's plays, and by an exceptional mark
of approbation a second performance was given. 1 What modern audience
would sit through a play in which Lord Tennyson and Mr. Eliot discussed
each other's poems; or, even if they did sit, how many would recognize
the quotations and appreciate the point of the criticisms. Furthermore,
none but a people, among whom a high standard of intelligence was
widely diffused, could have produced such a crop of literary, artistic and
intellectual genius in so short a space of time. There is no parallel to it in
history.

Consider the names that this tiny community produced within the
space of two generations ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristo-
phanes in drama; Thucydides, the "father of history"; and Socrates, the
founder of moral philosophy; Phidias, the sculptor of the Parthenon, and
Ictinus, its architect. Besides these must be counted many other dramatists
who at times won the prize over the heads of their better-known rivals,
sculptors and architects whose works still testify to the justness of their
ancient reputation, to say nothing of the numberless vase-painters whose
consummate draughtsmanship has remained for the most part anonymous.
When we come to assess the measure of Athens' failure or success, that
record is by no means irrelevant.

Whether it is better to live dangerously, like Athens, and fail, or to
pky for safety, like Sparta, and succeed, must obviously be a matter for

1 It has been argued that genuine appreciation of plays was confined to a comparatively
small intelligentsia. But this play was produced on the very eve of Athens' final collapse, and
it seems incredible that at such a crisis the democratic populace cduld have been put off with
a play which they were unable to understand. In another comedy (from which a quotation
was given above) Mr. Playfair makes great talk about his experiences in the theatre, and he
was clearly a very average citizen.

133

individual taste. But for Athens, once she had chosen her course, there
could be no final or permanent solution of her problems. It was impossible
for her to stand still. Her whole history was a succession of crises, and her
national economy moved perpetually in a vicious circle. The more she
strove to multiply her exports, the more hands were needed for their
manufacture. More hands employed meant more mouths to feed; and
this in its turn demanded a larger volume of exports to pay for the food.
Her position, too, as an imperial power, inasmuch as it forced her increas-
ingly to belie her own democratic principles, was by the nature of things
precarious. It was the signal triumph of Pericles' statesmanship that for so
long a period of years he was able to tide over these problems with such
continuous success. Yet, as soon as one problem was surmounted, another
took its place; and it can hardly seem surprising that, once his guiding
hand was gone, the Athenian democracy grew bewildered or that in its
bewilderment it committed the long series of blunders which brought
about its ultimate ruin, choosing bad leaders, making over-hasty decisions,
and taking refuge in desperate gambles or ill-considered barbarities.
When the end came and Athens fell, it was natural enough that contem-
porary Greece wrote her democracy down as a failure. But this was a
short-term view. Among the great men of history many have appeared
failures in their life-time; but posterity, perceiving their influence to grow
with years, has reversed the contemporary verdict. To apply the same
criterion to a people would seem only common justice. Greek civilization,
says Professor Toynbee in his "Study of History," was the most brilliant
that has existed up to the present clay. The civilization of fifth-century
Athens represented its peak, and her influence literary, artistic, philo-
sophic, and even in some degree political l is with us still.

1 The political thought of the seventeenth century, when Parliamentary government was
taking shape, was much influenced by the study of Greek writers. It may be recalled that
Milton's welt-known pamphlet on Free Speech was named after the Athenian Areopagus.

134

CHAPTER DC
CHANGING TIMES

i. SOCRATES

The rule of the thirty quislings, set up by Sparta to govern Athens,
did not last many months. Democrats, gathering in countries across
the border, came home and turned them out; and the Spartans, feeling
Athens to be no longer militarily dangerous yet difficult to control,
accepted the fait accompli. So a democracy was again established but an
embittered democracy conscious of past failures and eager to find scape-
goats on whom to set the blame. One was found in the person of the
philosopher, Socrates. Very many in the city felt that teaching such as his
was in part responsible for the rot among the rising generation; and after
all, Alcibiades was notoriously his pupil. So in 399 they brought him to
trial on the double charge of impiety and of "corrupting the youth." He
was convicted and sentenced to death by drinking hemlock.

Socrates, though he rose far above its standards, was the creature of
his age, just as Plato his pupil was in a somewhat different sense typical
of the age which succeeded it. It is to his writings that we owe most of
our knowledge about Socrates (who never himself wrote anything), and
to disentangle from the Platonic Dialogues what ideas belong to the
master and what to the pupil is no easy matter. 1 But from a study of the
contrast between the two men, we may glean something of the changing
temper of the tames as well as of the Athenian contribution to Hellenic
thought.

Born in 469, Socrates was a proletarian, and an ugly one at that, with
a stout stocky figure, large earnest bulging eyes, and a snub nose. He
worked as a sculptor, married to a shrewish wife; and, since he possessed
no private means, it meant, as he said, "myriad poverty" when he came
to devote himself entirely to the life-long mission of philosophic enquiry.
Fairly early in life he seems to have been interested in the New Learning,
and to have studied the theories of the Ionian school of which Anaxagoras
was a member. But he grew dissatisfied with their continued emphasis
on Matter as the prime reality of Creation. He felt convinced that behind
all the sense-perceived phenomena of cause and effect lay something of
infinitely greater importance. Anaxagoras had called it Mind, and left it

1 See footnote, page 144.

135

at that. But Socrates called it "soul," and with this daring venture of
intellectual imagination he brought into being the concept of spiritual
existence independent of matter x a concept which has governed all
subsequent thought.

When he was forty, there came a curious but crucial episode which
changed Socrates' whole life. What happened shall be told in the words
which, by Pkto's account, he himself used at his trial. "Everyone here,
I think, blows Chasrephon," he said, "he has been a friend of mine since
we were boys together; and he is a friend of many of you too. So you
know the eager impetuous fellow he is. Well, one day he went to Delphi,
and there he had the impudence to put this question do not jeer, gentle-
men, at what I am going to say he asked, 'Is anyone wiser than
Socrates?' And the Pythian priestess answered, 'No one.' Well, I was
fully aware that I knew absolutely nothing. So what could the god mean?
for gods cannot tell lies. For some time I was frankly puzzled to get at his
meaning; but at last I embarked on my quest. I went to a man with a high
reputation for wisdom I would rather not mention his name; he was
one of the politicians and after some talk together it began to dawn on
me that, wise as everyone thought him and wise as he thought himself,
he was not really wise at all. I tried to point this out to him, but then he
turned nasty, and so did others who were listening; so I went away,
but with this reflection that anyhow I was wiser than this man; for,
though in all probability neither of us knows anything, he thought he
did when he did not, whereas I neither knew anything nor imagined I
did." And so the search went on, Socrates visiting other folk among
whom he hoped to find real knowledge, poets and handicraftsmen and
the rest, but always with the same negative result.

Thus, as time went on, the tough old philosopher abandoned himself
entirely to what he considered his divinely appointed quest after truth,
pursuing it in company with anyone whom he could draw into con-
versation, but particularly with a group of young followers who soon
gathered round him. Outwardly, therefore, he resembled the Sophists;
but, in fact, his whole method was a conscious protest against theirs. He
took no fees. He made no pretensions to omniscience; on the contrary,
he affected a half-humorous pose of complete ignorance ("Socratic
Irony" they called it). Unlike the Sophists, too, he never wandered about
from city to city. He was a true son of Periclean Athens, a "lover of that
fair mistress," and he conceived it as his mission to goad his fellow-
countrymen out of their complacency, "like a gadfly stinging some sleepy

1 The conception of "Soul" as a moral entity ie., as something of supreme importance
to the individual man was certainly Socrates' discovery, though Protagoras and his school
had already assigned to it a central place in the cosmic mechanism.

136

old horse," and to persuade them of the paramount importance of
"bettering their souls." His main quarrel with the Sophists, indeed, was
that they professed to train men by intellectual discipline to the ideal
pattern of manhood and citizenship, but when asked to define that ideal,
they could give no satisfactory answer Nazis can manufacture "good
citizens" of the National Socialist state, but the "good citizens" of a
brigand state must needs themselves be brigands. For his own part,
Socrates was convinced that it was the ideal of Justice and Moral
Righteousness a harmony between all the human instincts and faculties;
and that, if only men could but know where in such a spiritual state con-
sisted, then nothing would be easier than to attain life's goal of happiness.
But, until it were known, how could it be taught?

So he pursued the enquiry day in, day out, through a series of endless
discussions, posing people with questions and cross-examining their
opinions. The discussions led to no positive conclusion. For Socrates*
method was highly critical, and, whatever theories were put forward,
he always succeeded by his ruthless logic in knocking them down. Judging
from results, many of his pupils absorbed the destructive element of his
teaching and missed its real point. For Socrates' true greatness lay in his
unshakable faith that, however baffled he might be in his attempt to
discover their nature, Truth and Goodness were a reality the permanent
reality which the Ionian physicists had so often discussed, but which even
the best of them still held to be material. Of the spiritual nature of the
soul and of its immortality, too (though he was not prepared to say that
he knew about this), he was absolutely convinced.

So far, therefore, from abandoning the moral conventions (as Alcibiades
and his sort were only too ready to do), Socrates clung to them most
determinedly in his practical everyday life. He was punctilious in the
performance of his civic duties. He served in the army with a pluck and
ferocity which, in one battle at least, scared off the pursuit of a victorious
enemy. He was elected to the Council, and stood out, as we have seen, in
heroic isolation against the illegal procedure of the Assembly. Even after
his condemnation, when he might have escaped from prison, he refused
to do so because it was against the law of the State.

In Socrates this unswerving moral integrity was, in the last resort, part
and parcel of his intellectual faith; and of this a word of explanation is
required. When the Pythagoreans discovered what they took to be the
mystical significance of numbers, they based their theory on the fact that
mathematical truth is the one element of reality which the mind can folly
comprehend. Now we know that under any circumstances two and two
make four, or that the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle

137

is equal to the square on the other two sides. Such knowledge, though it
may require some education to make the individual aware of it, is none
the less self-evident, pre-existent in the mind, not put into it from outside.
Similarly, Socrates appears to have believed that there exists in man's
soul from birth a knowledge of the good, and that it should be the function
of education to make that knowledge explicit. We moderns might call it
conscience; and Socrates himself was inclined to think it came from God
(for like all the more profound Greek thinkers he was at heart a mono-
theist). But the perception of Goodness, thus innate in the soul, was to
him something very different from instinct or inspiration. An intel-
lectualist to the core, he was convinced that all moral problems, like
mathematical ones, were susceptible of rational explanation, and that
through hard thinking alone could man discover the key to virtue and
happiness. In other words, the knowledge he sought was not the spiritual
certitude of the saint, but the positive proof which the sceptic demands
and which, though it for ever eluded him, Socrates still pertinaciously
believed to be awaiting discovery. Meanwhile he very obviously enjoyed
the quest and found in the use of the intelligence to him the supreme
function of our mortal nature the noblest and the most repaying of all
life's activities.

Yet in Socrates' make-up there was also a mystical element which at
times seemed to conflict with his intellectualist creed. He often fell, we
are told, into long trances of contemplation from which he would awake
with a start, mutter a prayer, and be gone. Often, too, as he himself said,
a "divine voice" warned him (and it was always negative) against some
act he was contemplating. 1 At his trial this "voice" was undoubtedly one
of the counts in the charge of impiety. The defence he set up as reported
by Plato did nothing to better his case. He simply reiterated his belief
that he had been "called" to convert his countrymen to a more serious
consideration of their "souls," and he could do no other, not if they were
to condemn him a thousand times over. When after conviction he was
asked (as was customary in some legal suits) to nominate the penalty he
thought fitting to his case, he jokingly suggested that as a benefactor of
the state he should receive free meals at the Town Hall for the rest of his
life. Subsequently he proposed a fine. His accusers asked for the capital
sentence, and, perhaps not unnaturally, they got their desire.

1 That there was no real inconsistency between Socrates* mystic experience and his
intellectual standpoint, is clear from the extract of his final speech given below. When his
"Voice" checked him over trifling matters, he evidently humoured it, much as Dr. Johnson
humoured his idiosyncrasy for touching alternate posts on a paling. But when at his trial
great issues were at stake, then he sought to understand and rationalize the "Divine Sign."
Its warnings, in other words, were in his view based on some principle, the truth of which
could be proved by Reason.

138

When the sentence was passed, Socrates took leave of the jury in a final
speech; and this speech so significantly combined the various elements in
his character the sceptical and the mystical, the half-playful and the
deadly serious, and above all the calm assurance that everything in the
world was planned for the best that its closing passage shall be quoted
here l : "Stay a moment my friends," he said, "for so I would call you;
we still have time to romance a little together, and I feel that the inward-
ness of to-day's events requires some elucidation. There is one very odd
fact. In the past, as you know, my familiar Voice* has repeatedly checked
me whenever I was on the point of making some blunder, no matter how
small. Well, you might think that what has come to me to-day is as bad
a thing as could possibly be. Yet, when I left my home this morning, the
'divine sign* made no protest. Nor did it when I entered the court, nor
when I was engaged in my speech; though commonly enough it will
check me when the words are on the tip of my tongue. No, throughout
the whole of this affair it has never once intervened, whatever I might do
or say. How is that to be explained? I will tell you. It looks to me as
though what has happened were a blessing in disguise and that we are
all quite wrong in regarding death as something bad. And the strongest
evidence of it is that my familiar 'sign* could not possibly have failed to
intervene had I been on the wrong road. In this belief I am greatly
strengthened by the following reflection. There are only two possibilities
about death. It may be total extinction and loss of all sensation, or alter-
natively there is the traditional view, and it may be a spiritual change, a
migration of the soul to some other world. Well, suppose it to be a loss
of sensation like dreamless sleep, what a grand thing that would be. Why,
you need merely to pick out one such night of dreamless sleep and
compare with it all the other nights and days of a lifetime and then
consider how many of these have brought more pleasure or profit, and I
will wager that the Great Bang himself, let alone any average man, would
find it no difficult sum. So if that is what death is like, good, say I; eternity
would be one endless night.

"Or let us suppose that death is what we may call a change of residence,
and that the tales they tell us are true and the dead arc all gathered yonder;
could anything be better than that? Just think of arriving in Hades
farewell to the mock 'Judges* of this world; instead, there would be the
great tribunal of which we have so often heard tell, those four true
Dispensers of Justice, Minos, Rha.daman.thus, -^Eacus and Triptolemus;
not to mention all the other heroes of old who lived just lives in their

1 The speech is one of the three given by Plato in his "Apology, or Self-defence of
Socrates." But it seems reasonable to suppose that he reproduced the main gist and tone of
his master's words.

139

no wasted journey that! What would you not give, I would like
to know, to make the acquaintance of Homer or Hesiod, or Musseus or
Orpheus? Personally I would be glad to die many times over, if such a
thing were true. For me, in particular, what a red-letter day it would be
to encounter Palamedes or Ajax or others of the ancients whose deaths
came about through a miscarriage of justice. We could compare our
cases together, and that, I fancy, I should rather enjoy. But best of all
would be to examine the good folk down there, as I have examined them
here, and find out, if I could, which were really wise and which merely
self-deceived. It would be worth a good deal, would it not, to question
the leader of the Trojan Expedition or Sisyphus, or Odysseus? Indeed,
there is no end to the men and women whom it would be the height of
bliss to cross-question down there in Hades, I take it, there is no capital
sentence for that; besides, amongst other advantages, their lives never
come to an end, if the tales, that is, are true.

"No, my friends, we must take a hopeful view about death; and you
should bear one truth in mind. Alive or dead, no ill can touch a good
man, His affairs are in the gods' keeping. So what has come to me is no
accident. To be dead and quit of this troublous life is quite clearly for
my good. That is why my 'sign* did not seek to divert me and why I
have no serious quarrel either with those who brought this charge 05
with those who passed this verdict. Something different, of course, was
in their minds. They thought to do me a mischief, and there they TOege
wrong. But one favour, please. Some day my sons will grow up and they
may well show signs of caring for money or suchlike more than tih$yfafe
about character. Then will be the time to have your revenge, with with
on them as I have been on you; and, if they fancy themselves wbndfeaUy
they have nothing to fancy, you must abuse them just as I have abused
you, for setting their heart on the wrong things and misconceiving their
own worth. We shall then have no cause to complain of our treatment,
I and my sons. But enough. It is time to be going I to death, you to your
lives; and which of us goes to the better part, no one but God can tell."

Looking back we can see that in Socrates were blended the two
spiritual currents of the past. On the one hand, he had the moral outlook
of the old aristocratic tradition. In his personal life he fully conformed to
its code, by his courage and courtesy, by his fidelity to the state, and not
least by his austere self-mastery. No one ever saw Socrates angry. He
could endure great privations; and when the other diners were all under
the table, he alone would keep a clear head. At the same time in his
teaching he always set character first. The word most frequently on his
lips was "Arete" a word which is commonly translated as "Virtue,"

140

but which to the Greeks combined all the moral and social qualities which
go to the making of the perfect man and citizen. On the other hand,
Socrates had the intellectual outlook derived from Anaxagoras and the
Ionian school of thought. His whole philosophy was an attempt to
rationalize Arete a conception long moulded by the narrow require-
ments of a small political community, hitherto in the main instinctive,
more or less blindly accepted, never clearly thought out. He rightly
insisted that so far from accepting such a ready-made code, each man
must seek to understand for himself what the goal of life should be. But
he was mistaken in believing that to understand is in itself enough, or
that intellectual freedom and social morality could be so easily harmonized.
To all appearances his life-work ended in failure. Many among his pupils
became dangerous Individualists. And by following the dictates of his
own personal creed he found himself at the last branded as a rebel and a
traitor to the society he had so earnestly community, a and with no
alternative but to abandon his outlook derived from the death. But
the apparent failure was short-lived, freedom set something going in
the world which, so long as men have minds to use, will never die out.
In the immediate issue it was Plato's task to continue his master's enquiry
and try to complete, so far as it ever can be completed, the educational
synthesis of Intellect and Character. This he did not by divorcing the
two, but by insisting that character if formed by mental habits, and sound
character, above all, by right men**! habits.

Meanwhile the tragic end of his mission left Socrates, as we have seen,
quite unperturbed. He died as task to continue in buoyant optimism.
Nothing ever daunted him. "Let us tollow where the argument will
lead,"*he "would say, as he went on to demolish yet another of his con-
temporaries' most cherished convictions. He had a robust faith in human
nature. He had an immense devotion to Athens. No doubt he was greatly
saddened by her fall; but we may feel sure he was not dismayed. Plato
the and therein lay the difference between the two men and between
the two ages to which they severally belonged.

2. PLATO

Plato was barely twenty-four when Athens fell. So the better part of
his life was spent in a changed world. Thirty years of war had left their
mark both materially and spiritually. The havoc to economic life was
terrible, and such havoc was then less easy to repair than in our modern
mechanized society. Agricultural recovery was painfully slow. Olive-
trees do not grow again in a night-rime, and the farms which the Spartans
had gutted removing even the roof-tiles, took long to rebuild. Trade had

141

been badly dislocated; and, though Athens managed to recover her
mercantile lead in the Aegean, the mass of her citizens remained in the
direst poverty. The ancients were little given to describing economic
conditions. They accepted them as they accepted the weather, thinking
neither worthy of mention until they became catastrophic. There is,
however, one fourth-century writer who has left us some sketches of
contemporary types, and these tell a significant tale. It is a tale of scraping
and cheese-paring, of quarrels over a lump of salt or a lamp-wick, of folk
who use a dinted measure to weigh out the family rations, borrow cloaks
and refuse to return them, and "move furniture, beds and wardrobes
about" in the hunt for a three-farthing piece. It was not lack of public
spirit alone which necessitated the payment of a fee for attendance at the
Assembly. Unemployment was widespread, and vast numbers of men
were driven to seek a livelihood as soldiers of fortune, selling their
services to whatever Greek or barbarian state would hire them. Ten
thousand such mercenaries, among them many Athenians, enlisted with
Prince Cyrus in a campaign against the Great King, his brother, and
were led right into the heart of Mesopotamia itself. A Spartan King died
fighting other folks' battles in Egypt, and Alexander in his eastern
campaign had to meet a large Greek force ranged under the Persian
command. Many states became seriously depopulated, and one town
founded with high hopes in the middle of the century under the proud
tide of the "Great City" dwindled again so disastrously that it was
nicknamed the "Great Desert."

All this distress served to intensify the spiritual change which was
coming over Greece. The City State was rapidly breaking up. The old
zest for co-operative effort was no longer the mainspring of men's lives.
They were cutting adrift from their moorings, going their own ways
and thinking their own thoughts. Even Plato abandoned the political
career he had planned for himself at Athens, and at one period of his life
he went out to Sicily to assist a tyrant-prince with philosophic advice.
To imagine Socrates in that role would not be easy. But men's whole
oudook was changing; so much that they had hitherto pinned their
hopes on was vanishing and life seemed empty of purpose. The most
thoughtful began to despair of society and lose faith in human nature.
The Cynic philosopher, Diogenes, retired contemptuously to live in a
tub where he could be independent of humanity and all its silly ways.
A note of disillusionment and pessimism crept into the temper of the
ancient world, 1 and even when Rome by her imperial rule restored

1 The theory has been advanced that among the prime causes which led to the Hellenic
decline was the spread of malaria. The evidence is not conclusive (see G.H., p. 254).

142

stability and cohesion, that note persisted. It is reflected in the literature
of successive ages, where its cynical tone finds an ultimate echo in such
lines as this sour little epigram:

Like swine we all are fattened up through life

mine author saith -
under the careful eye and careless knife
of Farmer Death.

Plato, even if disillusioned and dismayed, was not the man to accept
these symptoms of decline with resignation or despair. From his master
Socrates he had learnt to believe that life draws its meaning from some-
thing deeper than the changing fashions of social convention or individual
choice, and he was to devote his life to upholding that belief. But whereas
Socrates* dialectical method had been largely destructive, aimed at
divesting men's minds of preconceived notions, and so clearing the path
for the recognition of the truth, Pkto for his part sought to build up a
constructive system of thought, piecing together the threads and drawing
out the ideas of those rambling discussions which at the time may have
seemed to lead nowhere.

The literary medium he adopted was the pedagogic method of his
master the Dialogue. His style was unique die greatest perhaps of all
Greek styles, combining with amazing elasticity the colloquial and the
sublime, the jocular and the serious, as Socrates himself had doubtless
combined them. It is difficult, as we have said, to determine what theories
are those of his master and what are his own. In the earlier dialogues it is
thought that he reproduced Socrates' teaching more closely than in the
later. But in general his task was to give formal expression to what was
already latent in that teaching and to render explicit the ideas towards
which his master had been groping. So out of Socrates' mysticism he
constructed a theology and out of his day-to-day discussions aphilosophy. 1

That the difference between Right and Wrong is something funda-
mental in life Socrates most firmly believed. But, though easily said, this
is not so easily squared with the facts of human experience. The story is
told of a certain Persian monarch that he once summoned before him a
group of Indians and a group of Greeks. He then enquired first of the
Greeks if they would be willing to eat their deceased parents as the
Indian custom was; and the answer he got was an emphatic denial. He
next asked the Indians whether they would burn their dead as the Greeks
did; whereupon the outraged creatures set up a dismal howl. So what

1 An analogy has been drawn with the Fourth Gospel, the author of which, in expressing
the profoundest truths implicit in Jesus' teaching, has given them an explicitly doctrinal form,
very different from Jesus' utterances as recorded by the Synoptists. They are couched, more-
over, sometimes in monologue, sometimes in dialogue form.

143

seems good to one people or one age, may seem bad to another; and it
looks as though the difference between Right and Wrong were a mere
matter of fashion or convenience.

Plato's solution of the problem was this. 1 Just as Heraclitus had main-
tained that all natural phenomena perceptible by the senses are shifting
and mutable, so he declared that whatever appears to our mortal vision
as good, just or beautiful, is equally illusory and unreal. These appearances
are, in fact, no more than pale reflections of the ultimate "Idealities"
("Ideas" was Plato's word, but by this he meant something quite different
from mere mental concepts) the Idealities, that is, of Goodness, Justice
and Beauty, "laid up in heaven" and perceptible only to the "eye of the
soul." Once, however, man has learnt to perceive them, he should be
able to recognize at its true value their reflection in the work-a-day world
of time, space and sense.

Plato's philosophy must not be thought of as a rigid system. His views
were always taking fresh shape, and though their basic content remained the
same, his expression of them never attained finality. In his search for the
Good Life his enquiry very naturally led him to an examination of
educational methods; and in his most famous Dialogue the "Republic,"
he set out to formulate their ideal pattern. With great boldness of vision
he recognized that no educational reform can avail very much unless
accompanied by a reform of social institutions. In a communist state,
alone, can you educate for Communism or in a Nazi state for National
Socialist ideals. So Plato's project led him on to work out the pattern of
the Ideal State a Utopia. Not a democratic state; far from it. For Plato
put down all the evils of his day to the follies of Democracy. If he took
his model from anywhere, he took it from conservative Sparta; but it
was to be an inteUectualized Sparta. The mass of the people he felt to be
incapable of governing: their job was to plough,- manufacture or trade.
The state, meanwhile, was to be managed by what we should call Civil
Servants. He called them "Guardians." They were to be carefully selected
and bred on the best eugenic principles. For this purpose communism of
wives was essential; indeed, Communism was to be the keynote of the
Administration's whole existence, and all individual ambitions were to be
ruthlessly suppressed. The Guardians then were to be an aristocracy of

1 Some critics consider that Socrates, not Plato, originated the theory of the Idealities.
But Aristotle (who should have known) says: "Socrates interested himself in ethical matters,

for the first tjfonc on ethical definitions"; and "some make out that the Idealities are something
apart from sensible things; but Socrates, though he gave impulse to the theory, did not himself
separate me Idealities from the particulars of sense." This might conceivably mean that
Socrates believed in moral Idealities, but not (as Plato seems to have done) in Idealities corre-
sponding to objects in the physical world. But Aristode was a master of clear definition; and
if he meant that, he might have been expected to say so categorically.

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intellect, combining the moral virtues of the old-fashioned "gentleman"
with the intellectual capacities of the New Thought. Their education
was so planned as to lead them up to the eventual contemplation of the
permanent "Idealities," Goodness, Justice, Beauty, and so forth; and,
since nothing within man's mental scope is so demonstrably permanent
as mathematical truths, Pkto, like the Pythagoreans, laid great stress on
this abstract form of educational discipline. Once they had attained to its
ultimate goal and the true nature of the Idealities had sunk into their
souls, the Guardians were then to return to their task of governing the
Ideal State under the inspiration of their newly-won knowledge.

In such a system, however, there remains one awkward problem: who
is to choose the Guardians and upon what principles? And in the last
resort Plato was driven to the conclusion that an Autocracy would be
necessary the rule of a Philosopher King. Even so, we are faced with
another question. What would the Autocrat's philosophy be? If the
philosophy of Mr. Wells, let us say, we should have a Civil Service of
scientists. If of Hider (and even National Socialism after all is based on
some sort of philosophy) we should then have a Constabulary of Thugs.
So once again we are compelled to enquire: Who would choose the
philosopher King? To this there would seem to be no final or satisfactory
solution; and Plato's fundamental distrust of human nature, and above
all of the average man, thus leaves a disconcerting question mark over the
whole lofty edifice of his political casde-in-the-air.

Yet we must be fair to Plato. He was not, after all, of the stuff out of
which Totalitarians are made; and if his quest for human perfection led
him to envisage a somewhat fantastic society, he knew all along that his
Utopia was a visionary city "never likely to exist upon earth," as he
said, "but capable," as he added, "of being founded within a man's self."
For indeed, though his treatise was called the Republic, constitution-
building had never been its primary purpose. The State in his view was
nothing more than the human personality writ large; and whatever
principle makes for Justice in the state, must also, he argued, be the
principle making for Righteousness in the soul. In both he distinguished
three corresponding elements: in the State, first the intelligent rulers;
second, the "spirited" warrior-class whose duty is to fortify the rulers'
authority; and lastly, the common herd whose main preoccupation is to
satisfy their bodily needs. To these three in what must be considered the
first genuine attempt at psychological analysis on record Pkto then
compared the three human faculties or forces: Reason, Will-power, and
the Desires of the Flesh. And his conclusion was this: Let the two grosser
dements in either case be subordinate to the Rule of Reason, and thence

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will result that harmonious condition of State or of Soul which politically
is termed Justice and morally Righteousness. 1 Look where you will, it
would be hard to find a better definition of the moral ideal a harmony
or synthesis of all the human faculties and passions, akin to the intellectual
synthesis which we call Truth; and, though the individual conscience (as
we ourselves should put it), must in the first instance take its pattern from
the prevailing social code, yet a conscience, thus limited, is not enough,
and the true pattern, as Plato acknowledged, must be looked for elsewhere
than on earth. Some of his last words on the subject are worth quoting
here, even if in a greatly abbreviated form.

SOCRATES. So these worthless and ignorant folk whose lives are given up to
indulgence can never find real satisfaction. Their pleasures are im-
permanent and impure. They sit guzzling at table with heads down and
eyes fixed on the earth, like so many cattle; and in their greediness they
lack and gore each other with hooves and horns of steel, vainly seeking
to fill with that which is not, the nullity of their souls.

GLAUCON. Your account of the common herd, Socrates, would do credit to an
oracle.

SOCRATES. How then can its pleasures be anything ehc but ghostly imitations of
genuine pleasure? For these simply take their colour from the pains
with which they are bound to alternate. It is purely a matter of contrast.

GLAUCON. Inevitably.

SOCRATES. Then again take the type we have called the man of ardour and
spirit. If he likewise neglects to think, and allows passion, ambition and
love of success to betray him into temper and violence and spite, the
result will be equally futile, will it not?

GLAUCON. It is bound to be so.

SOCRATES. Then we may say with confidence that the types we have spoken of
can attain their maximum satisfaction, if and only if they take knowledge
and reason for guide.

GLAUCON. That is so.

SOCRATES. Now, if we arc agreed what difference Right and Wrong make in
the matter of pleasure and pain, we will proceed, I think, by simile.
We may perhaps liken the Soul to one of those fabulous monsters
which combine several shapes in one; and for our first shape let us
imagine a complex protean creature with a multitude of heads and
capable of assuming the aspect of any animal-type wild or tame.

GLAUCON. It would need a clever artist to model a creature like that.

SOCRATES. Now take as well two other shapes, the one a lion and the other
human. But the first creature must be larger than the lion and the lion
than the human being.

GLAUCON. An easier job for our artist.

SOCRATES, finally, join all three together in one to form a single whole; and
let the external appearance of the combination be that of a man

GLAUCON. Done! . . .

1 In Greek the same word is used for both.

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SOCRATES. Now, if we hold that to do the Right is in a man's own interest, this
means that whether in word or deed the human element within us
should have the mastery over our entire sel That clement must tame
and look after the many-headed monster; and it must make an ally of
the lion; and finally, it must encourage both lion and monster to live
at peace with each other and with itself as well.
GLAUCON. If we hold a hrief for the Right, that must follow.
SOCBATES. So a man of sense will never commit his bodily functions to the
irrational pleasures of the brute beast within him. He will not even
make health his primary object, nor value strength or beauty except
as aids to moral perfection. To him physical harmony will, in fact, be
merely a stepping-stone to a harmony of the soul

GLAUCON. Yes, that is the harmony to which true musicianship must look.
SOCRATES. And, when it comes to questions of money, there too the whole
man must be in like accord. He must never be dazzled by the popular
notion that wealth means happiness, nor seek to pile up limitless riches
which bring limitless cares in their train.
GLAUCON. I should think not.

SOCRATES. No, the spiritual polity, established within him, must never be lost
from view. Neither superfluity nor penury must cause disorder there;
and with that goal to steer for, he will regulate, as best he may, both
his saving and his expenditure.
GLAUCON. Exactly.

SOCRATES. So, too, with honours and office whatever will make him a better
man he will accept and nothing loth; but whatever in public or in
private life may mar that inner harmony, he will have none of it.
GLAUCON. Then he will never take a hand in politics, if that is his chief concern.
SOCRATES. Nay, by the Dog of Egypt, in his own private polity he most
certainly vfQ but not perhaps in his country's politics, unless Fate is
uncommonly kind.
GLAUCON. I sec. You are thinking of our Ideal City, our philosophic "Utopia";

for I do not think it can exist on earth.

SOCRATES. Perhaps, though, somewhere in Heaven its pattern is set, and
whoever wishes may see it and then found it within his own self But
whether it exists or will ever exist is beside the point. For by the rules
of that city alone he will live or else by none at all
GLAUCON. I expect you are right.

From these heights, none the less, Plato, like his own Guardians, could
come down, if need be, to earth; and it stands much to his credit that
even at the age of sixty he did not shrink from the challenge of applying
his ideas to practical affairs. In 367 he was invited to go over to Sicily and
there help to instruct a young tyrant-prince of Syracuse. He went, and
he wasted much valuable time in trying to teach the young man geometry.
It was not a success. He failed to convert his pupil into a "philosopher-
king," and came home to Athens greatly discouraged.

On his return he devoted much thought to even deeper problems
about the Universe not the physical problems of Ionian enquiry, but

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metaphysical speculations about die nature of God and the Soul. Here the
resources of logical thought proved ultimately inadequate; and in the
attempt to express the inexpressible he fell back on allegorical myths,
much as the author of the Revelations sought to describe the wonders of
the Heavenly Jerusalem in terms of harps and precious stones and pave-
ments of gold. One problem, however, baffled him. His belief in the
illusory character of the material world inclined him to hold a con-
temptuous view of the body. Like the Pythagoreans before him, he seems
to have regarded it as a clog or impediment to the spiritual growth of the
sou l a doctrine which certainly influenced the mind of Augustine and
which throughout the Middle Ages led to harsh ascetic practices and an
unworthy shame of man's physical instincts. His philosophy, in short,
contained within itself a dualism which was never resolved.

Plato's influence on posterity has been incalculable. A Roman states-
man, contemplating suicide, sat all through the night over his famous
dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul; and Elizabethan ladies experi-
enced ecstasies of emotion in the study of his ideas. For he stands, so to
speak, above the ages; and his hold on men's minds has lost nothing
through the passage of time. In periods of perplexity when the spread of
Individualism or the break-up of long-established traditions seem to
threaten the world with moral anarchy, they inevitably turn back to the
sturdy Platonic doctrine of the bed-rock Idealities or, following the
Platonic educational model, declare salvation to lie through authoritarian
inculcation of spiritual verities.

Yet in another sense Plato was essentially the product of the age in
which he lived. For, if the current of life was then taking a new direction,
there can be no doubt at all on which side of the water-shed he stands.
He could scarcely have thought, still less published, what he did, as a
member of fifth-century Athens. He belonged to something much more
closely akin to our own self-conscious world with its doubts and intro-
spection and spiritual malaise; and, even if his whole philosophy was
directed to answering such doubts, the malaise was none the less real
because it took the form of distrusting human nature itself. And apart
from his more abstract speculations, he raised for the first time many
practical problems which still puzzle mankind to-day. He questioned, as
we have seen, whether woman should not be thought capable of per-
forming the same jobs as a man "except fighting." He discussed economics
and in particular their relationship to political power. He laid the founda-
tions of psychology. Above all, he taught that for the solution of human
problems character and goodwill are not in themselves enough unless
accompanied by clear scientific thought. That truth the modern world is

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learning through its own bitter experience. And, needless to say, the
world of Plato's own day did not listen. It mattered little what diatribes
on Democracy he might write on what Communist Utopias he might
envisage; the instinct of Individualism, once awakened, was not to be
thus easily suppressed. Whatever it cost them in spiritual perplexity or
social disorder, men recognized that humanity had at last come into its
birthright, and posterity at least in innumerable ways was to reap the
benefit. For without the vital force of individual initiative and, if need be,
individual defiance of established convention and authority, the emanci-
pation of mankind from bigotry, superstition and despotism would have
been impossible. But Individualism of its very nature is an explosive and
disruptive element; and, as in many subsequent epochs, so too in the
epoch and country of its birth, it brought trouble in its train.

The change which was coming over fourth-century Greece took many
forms, some regrettable, and some the reverse; but nowhere can the
change be better observed than in the literature and art of the period.
Portraiture hitherto seldom attempted, or, if attempted, strongly
idealized now became a regular vogue; we possess some copies, at least,
of works dating from this epoch, and their sculptors did not shrink from
a realistic portrayal of individual traits and poses Socrates' bulging eyes,
Demosthenes* frown, or the handsome voluptuous curves of Alexander's
features. In drama, too, there was a similar change. Fourth-century
Comedy mainly represented by the plays of Menander in the next
generation to Plato is very different from the Comedy of Aristophanes
with its knock-about burlesque of contemporary savants or soldiers. Its
life-like studies of human psychology more nearly resemble the realism
of Euripides, though, needless to say, more shallow. Among the characters
appear the gay young spendthrift and his fast young mistress, the un-
scrupulous go-between, the smart-witted slave and the stingy tyrannical
father. Types, if you will, but types highly individualized and clearly
differentiated one from the other.

Literature is a faithful mirror of an age, and it is evident from such
plays that men and now at last women were beginning to live their
own lives and follow their own instincts untramelled by social con-
ventions. Boys and girls were even beginning to make love-matches,
though these were not as yet what we should call highly respectable. It
is scarcely too much to say that the germ, out of which die novel would
one day be born, was already present in the later stages of Hellenic life.
Love-poetry and lovo-poetry of a very different tone from anything
to be found in Sappho or other earlier writers at length makes its tardy
appearance; and it may not be amiss to close this chapter by quoting one

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charming little epigram written soon after the end of the fourth century
B.C. For this, after all, is the way the world goes, not in the lucubrations
of a philosopher's study, but in the meeting of two lovers at a street-
corner on a windy night. Socrates would have approved, and Pkto too,
for, intellectualist though he was, he was at heart very human, and he
wrote the greatest treatise on Love that has ever been written.

Sweet melts the snow in summer on parched lips;
and sweet for mariners long by winter pent

to espy Spring's Blossom-Crown. 1
But sweet beyond compare, when one cloak wraps
a pair of Lovers, and two true hearts chant

Love's praise in unison.

1 An allusion to the constellation which the Greeks called the "Garland."

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CHAPTER X
THE BREAK-UP OF GREECE

century which was now to witness the dissolution of the whole
JL Hellenic system was not an inspiring period. The great days were
over. The City State's vitality was swiftly ebbing. With one possible
exception, it produced no more great leaders; and, theorists apart, this
was to be an age of small men. Even the distinction between aristocrats
and proletarians vanished. There were just rich and poor people, and the
successful politician was the financier who could balance accounts.
Democracy itself had lost its creative impulse. Pkto was the sole literary
genius that fourth-century Athens gave to the world. Even the brilliant
improvisation of the amateur in State service was now a thing of the
past. Instead, we find a society of professionals professional politicians,
professional soldiers, professional bankers, even professional pugilists.
Specialization was the order of the day. The growing complexity of
technical detail demanded it, and the exigencies of the struggle for
existence kept every man intent on his job. He had little leisure or interest
to spare for public affairs. Politics became venal. Gold, filtering in from
Persia and elsewhere, proved a potent weapon of intrigue, and charges
of bribery were freely bandied across the public platform. True patriotism
was at a discount. Yet war for its own sake continued to make a sinister
appeal. Its excitements were welcomed as a respite from humdrum toil.
To mercenery and citizen-soldier alike, it brought prospect of plunder,
or, if he were lucky, a prisoner to capture and sell as a slave. Even the
rich were under the illusion not confined to ancient times that some-
how or other war paid.

So the quarrelsome City States, grouped and regrouped in bewildering
combinations, still continued their futile struggle for supremacy. And, as
years passed, it became ever more clear that by their suicidal competition
they were sealing their doom. But, apart from the certainty that sooner
or later they must succumb to some external conqueror, there were no
great or clear-cut issues such as had marked the course of the preceding
era, no great issues, that is, save one the eternal antagonism between
the East and the West.

For the real victor of the Peloponnesian war was Persia. By diplomacy
alone and without striking a blow she had recovered all that she had lost

through Xerxes' debacle nearly eighty years earlier. For, needless to say,
her financial assistance which had tilted the scales in Sparta's favour, had
jiot been given for nothing. Ionia had been the price she asked; and, when
the war was won, the Spartans stood by their bond. So once again the
close proximity of the Great King's Empire cast its ominous shadow
across European Greece. Military aggression, it is true, was no part of his
purpose. The lessons of Salamis and Plataea had been too well learnt; nor,
indeed, had he the strength for such an enterprise. But Athens' Aegean
supremacy had taught him that, if united, even the small Greek States
might be dangerous; and he was resolved that, if he could help it, such a
union should never recur. So he continued his diplomatic game of
encouraging discord among them, throwing his weight now on this side,
now on that, till by their interminable wars they completely exhausted
their strength. It was beyond his power, of course, and indeed
beyond anyone's power, to foresee that their very weakness would
one day expose them to conquest by an obscure little kingdom called
Macedon, and that then the tables would be fatally turned against Persia
herself.

Meanwhile, after ^Egospotami, whatever Ionia's fate, the control of
the Aegean had passed automatically into Sparta's keeping; and, as was
only to be expected, she mishandled her opportunity badly. The states,
who had looked to her as a liberator, soon discovered their error. The
regime established by Lysander, her victorious commander, proved
infinitely more oppressive than Athens had ever imposed. The island
cities wete placed under Spartan governors, each with a garrison at his
back, and the democracies favoured by Athens were replaced by pro-
Spartan oligarchs. But, like the thirty quislings whom Lysander had set
over Athens, these unpopular administrations very speedily collapsed,
and the admiral's high-handed methods having proved a dangerous
failure, he was recalled and deposed.

Now, however, there occurred an episode which brought about a
complete volte-face in Sparta's foreign policy. In 401 Prince Cyrus
collected his army of ten thousand mercenary Greeks and, marching up
into the heart of the Persian Empire, came within an ace of winning its
throne. 1 But, though he was killed in the moment of victory, his campaign
had a great and unexpected significance. The military weakness of Persia
was nakedly disclosed, and the Spartan authorities were quick to see that
they had made a needless as well as a mean bargain and that the re-libera-
tion of Ionia might well be within their power. Agesilaus, the man to

1 For details of this expedition of the Ten Thousand and their still more famous march
home, see G.H., Chapter XIV.

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whom the crusade was entrusted, most certainly viewed it as such. He
was more high-spirited and chivalrous than most Spartan Kings. He knew
his Homer, and he appears to have pictured himself as a latter-day
Agamemnon, setting forth to do battle on the Asiatic shore against the
hereditary foe of his race. So successful were his tactics that at one time
he threatened Sardis itself and even pushed his campaigns still deeper into
the heart of the northern hill-country. The Great King grew alarmed, and
after his manner undertook a diplomatic diversion. An agent, primed
with fifty gold talents, was sent over to Greece with orders to stir up
trouble among Sparta's neighbours at home. Thebes fell to the bait and
declared war against her one-time ally. She was joined by Corinth, Argos
and Athens; and soon a large "Foreign Legion" a motley but efficient
collection of Greeks hired with Persian money was operating round the
Isthmus. Sparta's whole position in Greece was thus placed in jeopardy,
and Agesilaus' campaign in Ionia was promptly called off. The Great
King's diplomacy had triumphed once more.

To make doubly sure, however, he resolved to drive Sparta altogether
from the Aegean. He placed an Athenian soldier of fortune named Conon
over a squadron of ships, half his own and half Greek; and their combined
strength made short work of the Spartans in a battle off Cnidus. But the
result of the victory was scarcely what the Great King had expected; for
with his ill-judged permission Conon sailed some of the ships to the
Piraeus; and Athens, with her fleet thus reinforced, slipped back into her
old place as the leading maritime power. She even began to gather round
her the nucleus of a new confederacy. The Great King again took alarm;
and, again shifting sides, he lent his fleet to Sparta. Following the now
familiar strategy, an attack was aimed at Athens' life-line, the Bkck Sea
entrance. The stroke was shrewdly timed. For nearly ten years the
inconclusive but devastating war had been raging round Corinth, and
everyone was sick of hostilities. Overtures were made for a settlement,
and in 386 the Great King achieved the crowning triumph of his subtle
tactics. He summoned a congress of the warring states to meet at Sardis
and the summons was answered. Never in all their history did the Greeks
sink lower tban when their delegates stood in the presence of the Persian
satrap and humbly listened as he read them the terms dictated by his
imperial master "I Artaxerxes deem it right . . ." The terms were
simple. His claim to Ionia was to be formally recognized. For the rest,
all other Greek states were to be free and independent. Athens, in short,
though permitted as a sop to retain three insignificant islands, was warned
off from any renewal of her old maritime Imperialism. As for Sparta, on
the other hand, it seems to have been tacitly understood that she might

153

use her arms as she liked in mainland Greece. In that there was no peril
to Artaxerxes it suited him well.

So at least Sparta herself interpreted the terms of the Great King's
settlement. She began by bullying her smaller neighbours; then by a
peculiarly treacherous coup delivered without even a declaration of war,
she seized the citadel of Thebes. But here she had gone too far. Her
unprovoked aggression had awoken a spirit of national resistance through-
out Boeotia. A band of patriots got together; and one night, disguised as
women they entered the Spartan governor's residence, where they
murdered him in cold blood. The citadel was recovered and the garrison
surrendered. A Spartan attempt to repeat the tactics of surprise upon the
walls of Athens brought her, too, into line against the common enemy.
So another miserable war began its weary course. In 371, it was inter-
rupted by a move for conciliation. A Congress, at which a Persian envoy
attended, met in Sparta; but at the last moment negotiations broke down.
The Spartan King refused to sign; and within a month a Spartan army
delivered against Thebes what was clearly intended to be a knock-out
blow.

The battle which followed was to mark an epoch in military history.
Hitherto the Greeks, for so intelligent a people, had been curiously
conservative in their tactics. The pattern of battle seldom varied. Two
solid formations of heavy-armed warriors, each presenting a continuous
shield-line, simply charged one another front to front, and endeavoured
by sheer weight of brute force to break through the opposing line. This
"phalanx" formation was normally massed to the depth of eight or
twelve ranks, ranged one behind the other to lend weight to the charge.
But when the Thebans now met the Spartans in the neighbourhood of
Leuctra, they increased the number of their ranks on one wing to fifty a
weight of impact against which not even the "invincible" Spartans could
long stand. After a tremendous tussle they broke.

Her unexpected victory brought Thebes at one stride into the fore-
front of the Greek world. Her commander, Epaminondas, was not merely
a military genius, but a statesman and man of culture as well, and he was
determined that the hideous menace of Spartan supremacy must be
ended. Three times he invaded the Peloponnese, even marching into
Spartan territory itself. His main objective, however, was to build up a
league among Sparta's nearest neighbours the Arcadians, and so form
them into a counterpoise to her military strength. As capital of the League
he founded Megalopolis the "Great City" mentioned above. But some
of the League members proved fickle allies, and a fourth expedition was
called for. So once again, near the Arcadian town of Mantinea, Epami-

154

nondas found himself face to face with the full Spartan host. As at Leuctra,
his handling of the massed phalanx succeeded; but in the very hour of his
victory he himself was mortally wounded. With his death the whole
impetus of the Theban effort collapsed. Sparta, it is true, never again
recovered her old predominance. Her man-power was dwindling, and
her military prestige broken. But such a result had been bought at a high
price. Greece's powers of resistance had been fatally weakened, and this
at the very time when those powers would be sorely needed.

Meanwhile Sparta's preoccupation had at least left Athens free to
develop her revived maritime supremacy. Despite the Great King's peace
terms, though indeed without strictly violating them, she had drawn
under her protection a number of island-states as well as some mainland
cities in the North-West Aegean. A fresh Confederacy had been formed
this time on much more equitable and liberal lines. As in the original
Delian League, representatives sent by its members assembled in regular
conference; and instead of the detested tribute a voluntary contribution
was levied. This spontaneous, though limited movement towards Pan-
Hellenic Union was perhaps the one bright spot in the whole confused
and gloomy outlook.

No feature in fourth-century history is more astonishing than the
rapidity with which Athens recovered her trade. To this, no doubt,
several circumstances contributed. The Spartans were not a commercial
people, so could not seize the opening. Corinth, Athens' likeliest rival,
suffered severely by the devastating war stirred up by the Great King's
agent, and at one time her ports were captured. But beyond this Athens'
knowledge and experience was her greatest standby. It was not for
nothing that for die best part of a century the carrying-trade of the
middle seas had been largely under her control and direction, and the
benefits of such control must by now have become almost indispensable
to others besides herself. True, gold brought from the East, the Black Sea
and the Northern Aegean was beginning to replace her silver currency;
but she, too, had taken to issuing gold coins, minted in the first instance
from the ornaments of her temples. The whole financial technique of
commerce, moreover, was further developed by the introduction of
banking. Money-changers, who sat at their tables in the Athenian market,
had begun to advance loans to merchants and ship masters. Such trans-
actions could only be made for voyages to or from Athens; but in days
when seafaring was still hazardous, it was an immense stimulus to trade;
for the bankers would insure vessels or cargoes by the method of advanc-
ing a loan, on the security of either. If the vessel went down, the lender
suffered a total loss. High rates of interest were charged, often amounting

155

to 30 per cent, and the money was collected within three weeks of the
termination of the voyage.

This highly lucrative business was almost exclusively in the hands of
resident aliens. The most famous of all bankers, Pasion by name, was by
origin a slave. In general, they held a high reputation; but smaller money-
lenders, imitating the big firms* methods on a more modest scale, got
themselves a bad name. An entertaining description of one such usurer
has come down to us. "There I found a wrinkled old man, with a scowl
on his face, and a musty moth-eaten document in his hand. He addressed
me in an offhand manner as though it were all waste of his time. My
letter of introduction said I wanted a loan; but he began to talk in sums
far beyond my ideas, and when I expressed surprise, he spat with marked
irritation. I got my money all the same, at a high rate of interest, of course.
What a pkgue these people are with their counters and crooked fingers!
Heaven preserve me from setting eyes on a usurer or a wolf!"

Large fortunes were undoubtedly made by both traders and bankers.
Pasion died leaving a fortune, which in our days would be worth at least
100,000. One orator remarked on the sad change from the good old
days when public buildings alone had attracted the eye. Now, while his
poorer neighbours next door might be half-starving, the rich man would
live in a sumptuous mansion, furnished with rugs and tapestries from the
East, and adorned with sculptures and paintings.

At the same time Democracy saw to it that men paid heavily for the
privilege of financial success. In a dozen ways, some in theory at least
voluntary, but many compulsory, a man of substance was called on to
put his hand very deep in his pocket. Here is a list of public services
rendered, taken from the speech of a certain litigant who boasted of them
in court. He had financed a comedy and several tragedies, a boys* chorus
and a men's chorus (for which he won the prize), a sword-dance display
and a naval race in the regatta; for seven years he had spent large sums on
the upkeep and outfit of warships; twice he had paid the war-tax or
capital levy, besides a great deal expended on "sacred missions and pro-
cessions." It was perhaps natural that one writer of the day declared that
"to be rich is more dangerous than to break the law; no wonder men try
to conceal the size of their fortune."

By such exactions, of course, the poorer citizens to a large extent
benefited. The gratuity for attending the theatre was more highly prized
than ever, and even when the Theoric Fund, out of which it came, should
in prudence have been devoted to military needs, the Assembly would
not hear of the suggestion. During the century, too, fresh pensions were
instituted for persons incapacitated by old age, accident or disease.

156

Among the rich there was much outcry about their burdens. Listen to
the philosopher Aristode: "Men's vice is insatiable. At first the dole is
enough; then, when they get used to it, they ask for more, and so on
ad infinitum. Such pauperization is like trying to fill a jug with a hole in
the bottom." If this appears a somewhat partisan statement, the fact
remains that Athenian finances were in a poor way. Since the loss of the
tribute gathered from the subject-states, the public income had dropped,
on an average, by one-half at the very least, and in some periods by
considerably more. Yet the cost of living measured by the price of corn
had very nearly doubled. Little wonder that the State was always on the
verge of bankruptcy. About the middle of the century a statesmanlike
Minister named Eubulus did something to restore financial soundness;
but for all that the city was in no position to fight a war of even modest
dimensions. She was compelled to hire mercenaries (for the man in the
street, if conscripted, could no longer compete with the highly-trained
professionals of the day); but as often as not, when she had hired them,
she could not find money to pay them. Such a condition of things does
much to account for the Athenians' impotence and lethargy even at a time
when, as we shall presently see, their very existence was at stake.

From what we have shown of the considered views of Pkto and
others, it is clear that in their opinion the only remedy for this state of
things ky in constitutional change. Democracy was out of favour with
the few who cared to think; and like Plato, some of these were beginning
to turn to the alternative of the Autocrat a strange conclusion, you may
say, for freedom-loving Greeks to arrive at; but practical experience
seemed to them to corroborate their theory. In the world around them
they could point to more than one highly successful monarchy. There
had been Dionysius of Syracuse, for instance, the father of Plato's young
pupil. This man had saved Sicily when threatened with utter catastrophe
from Carthaginian invasion. He had built up a strong army, kept a fine
court, patronized poets and philosophers, and he even wrote tragedies
himself. 1 A still more successful prince was Evagoras of Cyprus. He too
had similarly saved his island from absorption by Persia; and he governed
it so well, promulgating such sound laws and lending such encourage-
ment to literature and art that Isocrates, an Athenian professor, wrote
him a highly eulogistic biography. Times were changing indeed. To the
political pamphleteer it was no doubt refreshing to turn from the drab
incompetence of fourth-century Democracy to the brilliant efficiency of
these autocrats; and the time was not far distant when this same Isocrates
would hail as the potential saviour of Greece a semi-barbarian aggressor

1 For details of Dionysius' remarkable career, see G.H., Chapter XIV.

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from Macedon. It did more credit to his foresight perhaps that he further
regarded submission to Macedon as a necessary prelude to a Pari-Hellenic
crusade against Persia. None the less, it would have been a sad end to the
Hellas we have known, had not even at the eleventh hour a manlier view
prevailed, and a final, though unsuccessful stand been made in defence
of her liberty.

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CHAPTER XI
MACEDON AND PERSIA

i. PHILIP

North of Thessaly, and in the hinterland of the three-pronged
Chalcidic peninsula, lay Macedonia. It was a rough mountainous
country, and to the Greeks its inhabitants seemed little better than
barbarians. They were a wild folk, habitually carrying arms, much
occupied in clan-feuds and vendettas, and great drinkers, with a most un-
Greek habit of taking their liquor neat. Their monarchs, however, made
some pretensions to culture. They had learnt much from their more
civilized neighbours of the south; and Euripides was not the only learned
visitor to find a welcome at their court. Towards the Greek communities
on their border their attitude had varied between friendly intercourse and
occasional hostility; but now the relationship was to take a more sinister
turn.

In 359 the Macedonian crown passed to a young man of three-and-
twenty named Philip a maker of history, if ever there was one. In
boyhood he had spent three years in Thebes as a hostage. There he had
seen something of the disunion and weakness of Greece, and he meant to
profit by it. His first step was to create a strong national army, so he set
to work to discipline his rough clansmen. Experience was gained in
conquering the hill-country westwards to the Adriatic, and its highlanders,
too, he drafted into his army. During his stay at Thebes he had had
opportunity to study Epaminondas* tactical innovations; and now in
training his own troops he adopted the new-model phalanx, rendering
its spear-front even more formidable by giving longer lances to the rear
ranks. A cavalry corps he found already in existence; it was drawn from
the aristocracy and known as the "Companions." Under his leadership it
became the best in the world.

Philip's intentions were obvious. He meant to make his country a first-
rate Power. But a first-rate Power needs a port; and between Macedon
and the sea ky a line of Greek cities, dotting the Chalchidic peninsula and
the adjacent coasts. Of these the more prominent were Pydna, Potidaea,
Amphipolis, and above all Olynthus. Some were dependencies of Athens;
and, as the leading Aegean Power, she was bound to take interest in all.
Nevertheless, Philip meant to have his way. He first seized Amphipolis

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for the sake of its gold-mines, a valuable asset in financing his army.
Then he took Pydna, which gave him a port. Meanwhile he cast dust in

the eyes of Athens, promising to relinquish this city or exchange that

promises which, once her protests died down, he conveniently forgot

But this was only a beginning. Philip meant to conquer all Greece;
and, once set on a project, he was not the man to draw back. His character
was a curious blend of barbaric toughness and fine intelligence. He
admired Greek culture, and he had a soft place in his heart for Athens.
He even engaged the philosopher Aristotle to tutor his son. But he would
stick at nothing in achieving his goal. In the course of his wars he had
"an eye put out, a shoulder broken, an arm and a leg rotted away"; but
he counted all these well lost. Historical parallels are admittedly dangerous,
but Philip's resemblance to Hitler leaps to the eye. In diplomacy he was
a complete opportunist, breaking pacts and duping ambassadors without
shame. He kept paid agents in whatever country he coveted. "Pass me a
mule's load of silver through the gates," he boasted, "and I will take any
town." He struck, when he did strike, with lightning rapidity. But,
unlike Hitler, he possessed inexhaustible patience. He would spread his
tentacles southward till serious opposition was met; then would switch
his attention elsewhere and wait sometimes for years till suspicion died
down. Above all, he desired that the Greeks should themselves accept
him as their champion but champion against what? He needed some
bogey to use much as Hitler used Bolshevism. The Persian menace was
too remote. He wanted something nearer home;and Fate suppliedhis want.

In 356 a startling event occurred. A band of Phocian marauders,
dwelling in the mountains west of Bceotia, swooped suddenly on Delphi
and made themselves masters of the shrine. Greece was aghast at the
sacrilege, and there was something else besides piety in the outcry. As
with the fear of Communism in our own day, so then material interests
reinforced men's religious alarms. At Delphi, as we have mentioned,
there was a vast accumulation of treasure. Most Greek states kept there a
store of silver and golden vessels, a legacy from past benefactions and
employed on occasion to swell the pageantry at Apollo's festival. This
treasure was now at the Phocians* disposal, and they used it to hire
mercenaries. Very soon they became the terror of their neighbours; and
in 353 a Thessalian town thus threatened, appealed for Philip's protection.

Here then was his chance to act the champion against die enemies of
Greece; and he lost no time in marching his army down. The Phocian'
resistance was stout, but eventually he forced his way southward through
Thessaly and made for the key-pass of Thermopylae. Here lay the road,
not to Phocis alone, but to Boeotia and Thebes, and beyond them to

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Attica itself. Little wonder that the news startled the Athenians. For once
they threw off their complacency and decided on action. So, when Philip
reached Thermopylae, he found the way barred by their army. The last
thing he wanted at this stage was a collision with Athens. So he tactfully
withdrew.

The Athenians sank back into lethargy. Resistance to Macedon was by
no means a popular cry. It found one spokesman, however, in the orator
Demosthenes. He was a grim, pessimistic character, embittered by an
unhappy boyhood and political frustration, and hardly a real leader. Nor
did he at this date hold any official position. The technicalities of warfare
were now beyond the scope of amateur strategists, and the direction of
campaigns was left to hired professional captains. All Demosthenes could
do was to agitate; and in season or out he reiterated his warning, pouring
forth appeal or invective with passionate earnestness in hard, dry, well-
reasoned periods the classical model of patriotic oratory. 1 He even
toured other cities in the attempt to rouse public opinion. It was a brave
stand; but nobody listened. The old spirit of self-sacrifice and pugnacity
was dead, and even had Demosthenes been twice the man he was, it was
now too kte to save Athens or Greece.

For three years after his rebuff Philip lay low; and, when next he
struck, it was at Olynthus, the leading Greek town on his border.
Treachery hastened its capture; and to the universal dismay he sold its
inhabitants into slavery. Olynthus was Athens' ally, but she had been
painfully slow to act; and even when on Demosthenes* plea an expedition
had been sent, it was turned back by storms. Now there was no alternative
but to swallow her humiliation and reach, if possible, some understanding
with Philip. So a deputation of ten Demosthenes among them was
sent to Macedon on a mission of appeasement. Philip flattered them. He
assured them that all should be settled; even against Phocis, he declared,
he harboured no evil designs; but he would swear no oath to a treaty.
Presently he moved south, taking with him the dupes of his procrastina-
tion. On reaching lower Thessaly he sent them home, still protesting that
all would be well. But barely had the envoys arrived back in Athens when
news came that a Phocian traitor had sold the pass of Thermopylae, that
Philip had slipped through, entered Phocis and razed all its towns to the
ground.

The Athenians were horror-struck. But the rest of Greece applauded
the restoration of Delphi to its priests and the punishment of the sacri-
legious marauders. The Arcadians set up a statue to Philip's honour.
Argos voted him a golden crown. He was complimented by the

1 The younger Pitt always studied Demosthenes when about to address die House.

Amphictyonic Council, an ancient body recently revived by states
adjacent to Delphi. What must have pleased him still more, he was even
invited to become a member of the Council, and a few months kter to
preside over the celebration of Pythian Games.

Philip was now within striking distance of Athens. But he held his
hand. He still had hopes that she might become his willing vassal; and
he was already forming projects in which the co-operation of her fleet
might prove invaluable. For, once Greece were his, Philip meant to lead
a Pan-Hellenic crusade against Persia. The idea was not new. The trail
had long ago been blazed by the Ten Thousand Greeks who had marched
with Prince Cyrus. Agesilaus' crusade for the recovery of Ionia had
followed; and at this very moment Isocrates was urging its resumption.
During the next six years, therefore, Philip pushed his campaigns along
the Thracian coast towards the Dardanelles, and attacked, though un-
successfully, the key-fortress of Byzantium. The road for his projected
invasion of the East was thus being prepared.

In 339 he returned to the afiairs of Greece. And now with a short-
sightedness that baffles belief, the Amphictyonic Council played straight
into his hands. A trifling border-dispute had arisen near Delphi and they
summoned their recent champion to settle it. Once on the spot, Philip
threw off pretences. In the spring of 338 news reached Athens that he was
moving on Thebes. Amid scenes of panic desperate efforts were made to
put the city on a war footing. At the eleventh hour even the Theoric
Fund was converted into a military chest. Old quarrels with Thebes were
forgotten, and the Athenian army was rushed to her assistance. Demos-
thenes, now the hero of the hour, marched in its ranks.

Near Chaeronea the decisive battle was fought. Philip won; and Greece
lay at his feet. He posted garrisons in key-towns, then called a Congress
at Corinth and dictated his terms. They were generous. The various
states, though permitted a local autonomy, were to be organized in a
League over which Philip, of course, would be master. So Greek liberty
was dead. Yet next year, when Philip announced his plan for the invasion
of Persia, the League Council received it with enthusiasm, and arrange-
ments were made to provide a Pan-Hellenic army and fleet. Not many
months kter, as the result of a family quarrel, Philip was murdered,
probably by an agent of his own wife. His young son Alexander reigned
in his stead.

2. ALEXANDER.

Alexander at twenty was everything a Greek would admire strikingly
handsome, athletic enough to have entered for Olympia had he cared to

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train, a great huntsman and a rider who had never known a horse he
could not master. His intellectual gifts were exceptional and he had been
educated by the wisest man in the world. He had imagination, too. He
was a great lover of Homer, and slept always with an Iliad by his bed.
But chief of all his qualities was his personal magnetism; he was die sort
of leader that men will follow anywhere the ideal captain, in short, for
the great adventure to which, in accordance with his father's intentions,
he meant to lead the Greek world.

Yet at the outset the Greek world remained sulky and restive. Twice
there were risings once during the first weeks of his reign, and then
again when his death was rumoured during a campaign against some
tribes in the north. On the second occasion he made Thebes an example
and destroyed the town utterly. After that there were no more revolts.
Though lukewarm at first, enthusiasm for his eastern campaign grew
with its mounting success; and finally he was accepted as a national hero.
It is not without significance that in contemporary portraiture sculptors
affected a type which reflected the young man's well-modelled features.

When in the spring of 334 Alexander crossed the Dardanelles he
probably envisaged little more than the conquest of Asia Minor. But in
the battle fought nearby at the Granicus River he won a crushing victory
over the Persian advance-guard, and this may well have decided him to
strike at the heart of the empire itself. For such an undertaking his forces
seemed small, not more than forty thousand at most, part Greek and part
Macedonian. Yet it was no madcap venture. Apart from a few picked
corps and a body of Greek mercenaries the Great King had no first-rate
troops. His oriental levies, though inexhaustible in number, were of poor
quality. Darius himself was no leader. His satraps were unreliable; and,
given a swift blow at its vitals, the unwieldly Empire was ready to fall in
pieces.

Alexander moved deviously on through Asia Minor, freeing the Greek
cities as he went. At its eastern limits the main Persian army was awaiting
him; and in the coastal plain near Issus a stubborn battle was fought. But
the staunchness of the phalanx and the impetuous charge of the "Com-
panions" carried the day. Darius fled; but Alexander did not pursue him.
Before advancing further, he meant to secure his southern flank. So he
marched down through Syria, captured by seige the Phoenician naval
base at Tyre, and then passed on to Egypt, where he was hailed as a
deliverer. While wintering in the Nile valley, he chose the site for a new
commercial centre to take the place of Tyre. His choice was good;
Alexandria, as it was to be called, occupied a highly favourable position
for linking the trade, not merely of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean,

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but, when these too were opened up, of India and the Far East. Yet what
would be its chief role in history, not even its founder can dimly have
guessed. As a result of his conquests, the world's centre of gravity was
shifting culturally no less than economically; and in the not distant
future, Alexandria was to replace the cities of the Aegean basin as the
focus of Greek intellectual and artistic life. Thus, unknown to himself,
the major part of Alexander's work was already accomplished.

In 331 die eastward march was resumed. Mesopotamia was crossed,
and near Arbela on the upper Tigris, Darius was again brought to battle,
and this time decisively. With him was now a vast array of tribal levies
drawn from all parts of his empire; and in the open plain Alexander's
inferior numbers were under a handicap. But the old tactics of phalanx
and cavalry again carried the day. Darius escaped, later to be murdered
by his own followers; and meanwhile Babylon, Susa, and the old Persian
capital Persepolis passed in quick succession into Alexander's hands.

Common prudence would have dictated a pause and die consolidation
of territories won. But Alexander's appetite had been whetted, and there
was no stopping him. At Persepolis and Susa vast treasure had been taken.
He could afford to send home such of his Greek volunteers as wished it.
Those who remained, together with his own Macedonians and some
native recruits whom he now drafted in, could be kept indefinitely on
the proceeds of the loot. Thus his army was no longer representative of
any truly national cause. It owed allegiance to its master alone the ready
instrument of his will or his whim. And by this time, indeed, Alexander
was becoming a despot in more than name. Power had gone to his head.
He took to oriental habits of pomp and luxury, wore Persian robes and
tiara, and ordered even his European subjects to prostrate themselves in
his presence. And, like a second Cyrus or Darius, he began to covet
conquest for conquest's own sake.

So in 329 he pushed his march eastwards again into the furthest
dependencies of the crumbling empire. First he threaded his way up
through Afghanistan and overran the provinces of Bactria and Sogdiana,
staying a while at Samarcand, the capital of the latter, to marry Roxana,
a princess of noted beauty. Then, turning south again through the passes
of the Hindu Kush, he penetrated the Punjaub. As befitted a pupil of
Aristode, his scientific interests were strong, and exploration was no
doubt in part his motive. Ancient ideas of geography were crude, and
very likely he imagined he was approaching the extreme limits of the
Eastern world. But after crossing the Indus his troops refused to go
further, and Alexander had no choice but to lead them back, suffering
terribly from thirst and heat, along the shores of the Indian Ocean.

164

Once back in Babylon, he began preparations for the conquest of
Arabia; and, while these were in progress, he turned to the somewhat
neglected task of organizing his empire. His practice had been, where
practicable, to maintain the existing administrative machinery, leaving
Greek cities, for instance, to govern themselves and satraps to rule their
old provinces. Some readjustment, among the satraps especially, was
needed. But beyond this it was clearly Alexander's ideal to fuse, so far as
possible, the East and the West. His European soldiers were ordered to
marry native wives; and meanwhile the Hellenization of Asia was already
proceeding apace. Towns on the Greek model had been planted along
the routes of his march. Seventy-five such foundations are known to have
existed, some as far east as Samarcand. The more distant soon decayed
and disappeared; but others remained, like Alexandria, to become
flourishing centres of Hellenic culture. Greeks from Europe, attracted by
the prospect of trade, poured out to inhabit them, and the civilization
which they brought with them was to work, like a disturbing leaven, on
the drowsy conservatism of the East.

Alexander's fame was now spreading wide, and during his two year's
stay at Babylon, ambassadors eager to stand well with the new conqueror,
arrived from all quarters of the West from Ethiopia, Carthage and Italy,
and even from the chieftains of Gaul and Spain. So he had much work
on hand, and the strain on him began to tell. A fever, caught on campaign,
had already undermined his constitution, and oriental habits of self-
indulgence were getting the better of him. He was drinking heavily. One
morning, after a banquet held to celebrate his impending departure for
Arabia, he awoke on the verge of delirium. He lingered for some days,
but never really rallied. He was still in the prime of life, and never perhaps
in all human history did a single man's death send so great a shock
through the world.

3. THE SUCCESSORS

Without Alexander's leadership men felt bewildered and helpless. He
had left no instructions about the disposal of his Empire. His only son,
born by Roxana after his death, was never even considered; and his
generals and viceroys divided the territory among themselves. There was
much quarrelling and some fighting, and frontiers remained fluid. But
the broad lines of the division were these. Macedon and Greece went to
Antipater, son of Alexander's viceroy in Europe. Asia Minor and the
bulk of the old Persian Empire went to Seleucus and his successors the
Seleucids. Ptolemy, the Governor of Egypt, continued to hold it, and
similarly passed it down to his line. So things remained in unstable

equilibrium until Rome appeared on the scene and one after another
made the three dominions her own.

In Greece true political independence was dead. The ruler of Macedon
watched her states jealously, ready to intervene. Locally, however, a
shadow of liberty remained. Athens, though losing much of her trade,
survived as a centre of learning, to which in Roman days young men still
flocked for their University training. In the rest of the country two
leagues were formed: one, the ^tolian League, composed mainly of
states north of the Isthmus; the other, the Achaean League, in the Pelo-
ponnese. These experiments in federalism were remarkably successful;
and thus, when it was already too late, the quarrelsome Greeks achieved
some measure of unity. It is easier for even animals to live at peace when
once their claws are drawn.

The Seleucid monarchs were not long able to maintain their Empire
intact. Its more easterly provinces fell away, and Asia Minor too was
lost. The capital from which the remainder of their realm was governed,
was situated at Antioch near the head of the Syrian coast an enormous
city built with every refinement of Greek architectural skill, and rich in
every luxury the East could provide. Its rulers were staunch upholders of
Hellenism; but with one of them, Antiochus Epiphanes, it became a
positive craze. Early in the second century B.C. he tried to impose it on
his Jewish subjects by force. In the Temple precinct at Jerusalem he set
up a statue of Olympian Zeus the "abomination of desolation spoken
of by Daniel the prophet"; and during a lengthy but fruitless campaign
against the Maccabean guerillas he also destroyed Jehovah's shrine at
Samaria. Despite Antiochus* failure, Hellenic culture slowly crept into the
life of the exclusive Hebrews. By the time of Christ a Greek gymnasium
and theatre existed in Jerusalem. Greek dress became the fashion, and
most inhabitants of Palestine could speak Greek in a debased colloquial
form the language of the Gospels. Even the rigorous application of the
Mosaic Law began to be tempered by the rational outlook which
Hellenism inevitably bred.

But Antioch was outshone by Alexandria. Far more than the Seleucids
the Ptolemies of Egypt were genuine enthusiasts for literature and the
arts, and this great waterside city was a monument of all that was best
which could be salved from the wreck of Greek civilization. Nothing
like it had ever been seen in the world before. It measured ten miles in
circumference. Its streets were laid out in the approved rectangular
pattern with a main parade a hundred yards broad. A mole had been
built under Alexander's orders linking the city with the island of Pharos
and its famous lighthouse; and on either side of the mole was a spacious

166

roadstead. Within the walls stood a magnificent group of buildings a
Hall of Justice, government offices, warehouses, and so forth. Outside
lay a Hippodrome and Stadium. A canal brought water from the Nile,
which was distributed by conduits to cisterns in private houses.

By the beginning of the Christian era the population of Alexandria
stood at a million. Every race in the world was represented, each with
its separate quarters. Among them was a large Jewish colony, whose
scholars produced the Greek version of the Old Testament, known as
the "Septuagint" or "Work of the Seventy." The city swarmed with
Greeks, traders and bankers, artists and architects, students and scientists.
From them were drawn the administrative officials who superintended
building, public health, and other municipal services. In the Law Courts
a Greek code was followed and adapted, as time went on, to meet the
needs of non-Greek residents. There was, however, no Town Council.
The ruling Ptolemy after the manner of Egypt was absolute monarch.

Ptolemy the First was a man of great enlightenment, and it was mainly
due to his efforts that Alexandria became the new home of learning. He
built the famous Museum or Hall of the Muses, where a great company
of scholars and scientists worked in collaboration at the royal expense.
Nearby was the great Library containing at one time some half a million
papyrus-rolls. Here scribes were employed to copy out classical master-
pieces; critics annotated them and divided them into books and chapters.
Others compiled dictionaries and grammars. Thus Alexandria became, as
she was long to remain, the intellectual centre of the Mediterranean world.

Enough has been said to show how Hellenism flourished in the new
soil where Alexander's conquests had planted it. In all history it would be
difficult to find any single event which had done so much to revolutionize
the outlook of so large a number of the human race. This is not to say
that Jewish peasants and the cosmopolitan loafers by the Alexandria
quayside all became scholars and philosophers. But that the more educated
classes were deeply influenced is certain. Herod the Great was an ardent
Philhellene. The priestly caste at Jerusalem adopted a wholly new attitude
towards the interpretation of their scriptures. Even the man in the street
must have assimilated something from his familiarity with Greek customs,
with Greek legal and political methods, and, above all, with the Greek
language. When Jesus spoke of the Pharisees as "hypocrites" or "actors" *
his hearers cannot have failed to interpret the word in terms of the
theatrical performances which the Pharisees themselves so greatly
abhorred.

1 Jesus almost certainly spoke Greek as well as Aramaic; and it is at least possible that he
did so on this particular occasion.

167

Thus from the valley of the Nile and the Syrian hinterland to Greece,
Sicily and Southern Italy, there was now a more or less homogeneous
culture. When all these countries presently passed under the rule of Rome,
that fact not merely helped to facilitate the task of imperial administration;
it was also to exercise a growing influence on the mind and character of
the Romans themselves. Not least did it affect the spread of the Christian
Faith. For St. Paul and other missionaries could never have accomplished
their task, had they not been moving in a world which spoke the same
language and in some degree thought the same thoughts. More important
still, it meant very much that, when later the great theological contro-
versies were raised, the terminology of Greek philosophy was available
for the use of the early Christians, and they were thus able to formulate
in clear and precise terms the doctrines of the Church. A strange sequel
indeed to the ambitions of an impetuous young man, who liked to think
that he was treading in the footsteps of his hero Achilles, and waging, as
it were, a second Trojan war against the hereditary foe of the West.

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CHAPTER XII
HELLENISTIC CULTURE

With the Hellenistic I Period we are leaving Greece in more than a
literal sense behind us; and historically as well as geographically
the scene now shifts and expands. For the passing of the independent
City State marked the close of an epoch; and in the wake of Alexander's
conquests the Greeks found themselves launched upon a new and larger
world. There, politically and economically, problems were awaiting
them which concerned not diminutive valleys occupied by a handful of
men, but vast and populous continents; and the solution of those problems
lies beyond the scope of this book. For it belongs rather to a new phase
of human history which merged almost imperceptibly into the era of
Roman Imperialism.

Culturally, on the other hand, there was no such break. The old
classical spirit received a new lease of life, and its tradition not merely
survived; it was very sedulously nursed. Hellenistic authors and artists
worked, as one might say, self-consciously looking back over their
shoulder at the past. Poets could still shape language into lovely patterns
and express delicate shades of mood or fancy. But the old sublimity and
profundity were gone. Sceptical habits, engendered during the period of
the Greek decline, had checked the spontaneous flow of the imagination.
Literary criticism was a more characteristic feature of the age than literary
creation. More still was men's intellectual energy concentrated on the
abstract sciences. Brilliant discoveries were made in mathematics,
mechanics, biology and astronomy. Some found an application to
practical uses, but only to a very limited degree. Their final importance
lay less in ancient than in modern times, for they were ultimately to
form the starting-point for our own scientific research.

Any account of Hellenistic thought must inevitably begin with the
work of a man who belonged not to the transplanted civilization of
Alexandria or Antioch, but to the decaying civilization of European
Greece Aristotle. He was of Ionian stock, but bom at Stagira on the
borders of Macedon. He moved early to Athens, and there became a
pupil in Plato's Academy. Thus, as he rose to the height of his amazing

1 "Hellenistic" is the term applied to the period during which after the collapse of Greek
political independence, the centre of Greek civilization shifted eastwards.

169

genius, it was his task to continue and to develop the philosophic tradition
which Plato had founded. But the new trend he gave to it was of immense
significance. Plato, as we have seen, had been drawn by his theory of the
Idealities into a Dualistic view of the Universe. For according to him
there exist two worlds the world of permanent reality perceptible only
by the eye of the soul, and the world of physical phenomena, illusory,
impermanent, perceptible only by the senses. The gulf thus lying between
the two Aristode set himself to bridge. According to his view all "forms"
of existence derive their permanence from the operation of Mind. Thus
a cat is a cat, because Mind, distinguishing in it certain physical charac-
teristics, differentiates the "cat" form or "cat" type from all other types
of animal- Ultimately it is the Mind of God the prime cause of all
things, the "unmoved mover" which has so organized the Universe out
of chaos. But the principles of differentiation and causation, which have
made the world what it is, are no longer something outside it like the
transcendant Idealities of Plato; they are inherent in material things as
perceived by Mind. From this it follows that man's reason and observation
can discover what those principles are. So Aristotle undertook with
exemplary thoroughness to explore the entire realm of human and
ammal life, discriminating, defining and systematizing the various types
of character, of behaviour or of physical attributes which he found in them.

The treatises which he wrote summaries in the first instance of
lectures to be delivered to pupils covered an incredibly wide field. They
dealt with Logic, Metaphysics, Physics, Biology, Rhetoric and Poetry,
Ethics and Political Theory. In all these his principal purpose was the
formulation of accurate and scientific definitions. Thus in his "Ethics" he
defined the various virtues as a mean between two extremes; the right
use of wealth, for example, as lying midway between stinginess and
prodigality an interesting rationalization of the old Greek doctrine of
the Golden Mean. In his treatise on Poetry he laid it down that the
function of Tragedy is to "purge" the soul by an Experience of "pity
and terror" a purgation productive of the calm elation which results
from witnessing such a pky as, say, "Othello" or "Hamlet."

At first Aristotle's methods were rather those of a logician than of a
scientific observer. He would argue that things must be so because reason
required that they should be. Thus, finding that the hypothesis of
four elements Earth, Air, Fire and Waterdid not account for the
"circular" movement of heavenly bodies (since Air and Fire only move
upwards and Earth and Water downwards), he proceeded to postulate
the existence of a fifth element, Ether, which, possessing itself a rotatory
motion, carries the heavenly bodies along with it.

170

Later in life, however, Aristotle progressed especially in biology to
a more scientific technique. He was now the Director of the Lyceum, a
rival school to the Platonic Academy, and here his studies were aided
by a large band of collaborators. Careful observations of animal life were
made and the results tabulated the habits of fish, varieties of insects,
and so forth. Animals were classified those, for example, which con-
tained blood and those which did not, those that breathed air and those
that breathed water. One member of the school wrote a treatise on
botany. To give more than a hint of Aristotle's encyclopaediac research is
here impossible. It was to exercise a vast influence on posterity; and
though without the aid of microscope or telescope its conclusions were
often superficial and even fallacious, it gave a vital impetus to further
enquiry more especial from the Renaissance onwards.

After Aristotle's day interest in science waned at Athens, but it was
reborn in Alexandria, There under the patronage of the Ptolemies it
flourished exceedingly. Attached to the Museum was an Observatory, a
zoo and a botanical garden. In these a large staff of scientists and students
carried on their work at the royal expense a classical example of what
subsidized research can achieve. It is not unlikely, too, that the practical
bias of the native Egypt had some influence. The earliest Greek thinkers,
as we saw, were ready enough to learn from foreigners. But since Thales'
day a more exclusive habit of mind had set in, and with it a tendency
towards abstract speculation very much divorced from real life. In the
less ratified atmosphere of the Near East the Hellenistic thinkers were
more willing to come down to earth, and some of their discoveries were
even put to a technical use. Thus in mechanics a certain Heron invented
an automatic device which opened and shut the doors of a temple by
steam-power; and Archimedes of Syracuse, who also at one time studied
in Alexandria, constructed a spiral pump for drawing water up from the
Nile.

Far more important, however, was the advance made in medicine.
Greece had always been famous for her doctors, one of whom, Herodotus
tells, had been carried captive to Persia, and there cured King Darius of a
dislocated ankle which had baffled the court-physicians. Most notable of
all had been Hippocrates, the "father of medicine," who late in the fifth
century had founded a school on the island of Cos. In this sphool the
symptoms of various diseases had been closely observed epilepsy, tape-
worm, and what was probably typhoid among them. Hippocrates'
general doctrine was to dominate the medical world, not merely of his
own day, but for many succeeding ages. Taking the current theory of
the four elements Fire, Air, Water and Earth he declared that all

171

illness results from an excess or deficiency of one of the four which he
renamed Hot and Cold, Wet and Dry. The curative process should
therefore consist in restoring the natural harmony of the body, by a hot
diet if there were a deficiency of one element, or by blood-letting if there
were an excess of another. As late as the seventeenth century A.D. this doc-
trine still held the field, and even to-day its influence is not wholly extinct.

First-aid on the battlefield. (From a vase-painting of a mythological scene.)

It was among the chief tasks of Alexandrian scientists to collect the
writings and apply the theories of the Hippocratic school; but in one
respect they were even able to make an advance on these. Post-mortem
dissection of the human body had been impossible in Greece, where the
dead were invariably burned; and hence the knowledge of the internal
organs had remained rudimentary. In Egypt, where the dead were
mummified, there was no such religious obstacle to dissection. Indeed,
there is a tradition that Alexandrian doctors were allowed to practise

172

vivisection on condemned criminals; and, although it is probably false,
the tale none the less shows they were interested in the workings of the
living organism. Be that as it may, anatomical research certainly went
forward and valuable work was done. Alexandria long remained the
leading medical centre of the Mediterranean world; and under the Roman
Empire its great pundit Galen was accounted the chief authority in antiquity.
But the practical value of Hellenistic science must not be overrated.
Greek intellectuals had a deep-rooted contempt for manual labour a
heritage, no doubt, of the aristocratic epoch. Mankind, in their view,
was divided into workers and thinkers; and for the thinkers knowledge
was something to be pursued for its own sake not for any ulterior end.

A young doctor operates on a working-man's arm. (From a vase-painting.)

So the work done in Ptolemy's Museum was mostly of this abstract
character, and very brilliant work it was. We need only think of the
geometry of Euclid (c. 290 B.C.) or of his younger contemporary Aris-
tarchus, the astronomer, who anticipated Copernicus 5 famous discovery
by announcing that "the sun remains unmoved and the earth revolves
about it in the circumference of a circle." This startling approximation
to the truth seems, however, to have made little permanent impression
on Aristarchus* contemporaries or successors. By the end of the third

173

century, \ndeed, Alexandrian 'science had seen its best days. But work
continued. It received a grievous setback when during Julius Caesar's
Egyptian campaign a part of the great library of books was burnt; yet
still the Museum struggled on, and from start to finish its remarkable
career covered a period of six hundred years.

The scientific pre-eminence of the Alexandrian school is apt to over-
shadow its literary achievements. Yet the Hellenistic writers were far
from negligible. Much of their energy went, it is true, into a pedantic
study and slavish imitation of the classical masterpieces. But some names
stand out without which no list of Greek poets would be complete.
There was Callimachus, for example, at one time keeper of the Ptolemaic
library, and the author of the poem best known by Cory's translation,
"They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead." Far greater
was Theocritus, the parent of pastoral poetry, an "escapist" as we should
call him nowadays, whose imagination, dwelling on the happy scenes of
simple rustic life, conjured up a fanciful picture of an idealized Arcadia
where shepherds piped beside murmurous mountain rills and love-sick
swains neglected their flocks to tell the story of their passion or die of
broken hearts. Such fantasies were a strange departure from the directness
and sincerity of fifth-century poetry; and stranger still they were couched
in the archaic medium of the Homeric hexameter. Yet for sheer artistry
Theocritus' idylls are inimitable, melancholy and gay by turns, yet
always filled with a haunting, wistful music. Not that they have had no
imitators. The Roman Vergil followed them in his Eclogues, Milton in
his Lycidas, and many others before and since. Translation can give no
hint of their beauty, but there is a fragment of Theocritus' work in a very
different vein a conversation between two Alexandrian ladies so
striking in its modernity that it seems worth quoting here.

GORGO. Praxinoe at home?

PRAXINOE. Why, Gorgo dear,

of all the wonders! So at last you're here,
(to a slave) A chair, Eunoel put a cushion on.
GORG. It's nicely, thank you.

PRAX. Please to sit you down!

GORG. Oh, dearie me, the job to reach your doorl

such swarms of people, four-in-Jiands galore,

top-boots, frock-coats; and then the distance, dear!

"Whatever made you come and settle here?
PRAX. ' The other end of nowhere just his game

(the spiteful creatures; men are all the same)

to buy this hole well, who'd call it a house?

to stop us. two from living nice and close.

174

AladyoftheHdfaijticpaiQi (From i statuette)

175

GORG. Hush! do be careful and not talk like that

of your good man in hearing of the brat.

See, how his eyes are starting, Bless the lad!
(to child) So, so my beauty! Mummy not mean Dad.
PRAX. My, but you're right. He's looking.

GORG. Nice papa!

PRAX. "P a P a " went shopping for Vinolia

oh, well! we'll call it tother afternoon

and brought home salt, the six-foot simpleton.
GORG. Mine's just the same to make the money fly.

He paid a pound for leather yesterday

and all he got was filthy second-hand

odd bits and pieces. Troubles never end.

But come, my dear, take up your cloak and shawl.

Let's to the pakce to see the Festival . . .
(to slave) Eunoe, take the wool and put it down

there on the floor, you good-for-nothing loon!

Always asleep, the pussies. . . . Hurry up!

A wash, please! Idiot, what's the use of soap

without die water? Pour away! don't waste!

Stop! now you've wet my dress.
GORG. How very chaste,

Praxinoe! I do admire that fold.

How much a yard?
PRAX. Don't ask me. Untold gold.

Another literary genre very popular with Hellenistic writers was the
epigram. This poetic form a short highly wrought stanza normally of
half a dozen lines or less had been used by Simonides and others for
inscriptions on tombs. 1 It was still employed for that purpose, often
expressing deep emotion with great simplicity of language.

This small stone tells that we loved greatly. Still for thee
I seek and shall, until I find thee, seek no less;
But thou if dead men may remember O for me
drink not of the Dark River of Forgetfulness.

But gradually the scope of the epigram had been enlarged. It was used
for humour.

Mr. Funk thought fit to be
Sober in drinking company;
So to the drinkers, Mr. Funk
Appeared to be the one rpan drunk. 1

But the greatest of Hellenistic epigrammatists was Meleager, born at
Gadara near the Sea of Galilee more than half a century before Christ
performed his miracle there; and in his hands the love-poem reached its
perfection. Though somewhat voluptuous in tone, their delicacy of

1 "Epigram" originally meant "inscription.**

* Translation by a scholar of Winchester College.

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phrase and variety of cadence give his lines an unrivalled quality of
richness, impossible to reproduce in English. This poem in a less passionate
vein may give some idea of his delightful, though sophisticated, style.

Oyez! lost, stolen or astray!
Love the madcap boy has flown;
He left his bed at crack of dawn

And stole away;

A saucy will-o'-the-wisp young sliver
Grin impish; tongue awag; and tears
To melt a. stone with; Item, wears

Wings and a quiver:
Father unknown ris understood
That neither Sea nor Sky nor Earth
Admit to knowledge of his birth

Or parenthood.

His loss indeed will not be mourned.
This very moment, I dare swear
he's laying springes for souls. Beware!

you have been warned.
But hist, my masters! there he lies
Snug in his nest. Our quarry's found;
And you, Sir Bowman, run to ground

in Helen's eyes!

One impressive feature of Hellenistic literature was the purity of its
Greek. The colloquial Greek, now widely spoken round the Eastern
Mediterranean, had been greatly affected by outside influences. As found
in the New Testament, it is loose in syntax and contains many borrowed
words, some Latin, some oriental. It is the more remarkable, therefore,
that the Hellenistic authors avoided such foreign contamination; and,
except to the trained eye of a scholar, there is little to distinguish the
Greek of Simonides from the Greek of Meleager or Callimachus.

On the other hand, when the shadow of Roman domination fell over
the East, the impetus to free thought and free expression soon faltered
and died. During the second century B.C., Macedon and Greece were
incorporated in the Empire. During the following century Pompey
conquered Asia Minor and Syria; and not a generation later Egypt, too,
became a province. The example of the Greek genius inspired* it is true,
a great literary efflorescence at Rome. During these two centuries and the
first century A.D., Ennius, Lucretius, Vergil, Cicero, Horace and Tacitus,
were all in one degree or another imitators of the Greeks. But after them
the creative faculty seemed to vanish. Under the later Empire mental
energy was diverted to the discussion of theological problems; and the
great controversies ragednot least at Alexandria out of which
emerged the doctrinal formulae of the Christian Creed.

177

In the intellectual labour, which such formulation entailed, Greek (as
we have said) supplied the leaders of the Church with a ready-made
medium of philosophic thought and expression. No Jew out of his own
resources could have written the Creeds. Still less could any Roman.
And, when we pass on down the centuries, it would still be impossible
to overestimate the debt which Europe owed to the pioneer work of
Greece. Even when Rome herself was becoming effete, Alexandria
remained a centre though a decaying centre of learning. It was not
until A.D. 500 that the city finally fell before the invasion of Persian hosts
from Mesopotamia. And by now the focus of Hellenism was shifting once
more. When in A.D. 323 the Emperor Constantine had founded Con-
stantinople on the site of the ancient Byzantium, he had intended it to
be a Roman capital with Latin for its official language. But in the sixth
century under die Emperor Justinian the city took a new lease of life,
and more and more it became the home of Greek learning and art. It
was a vast metropolis the largest ever seen in Europe until modern
times, and to it gathered scholars from Egypt carrying with them precious
manuscripts from Alexandrian libraries. 1 So the old Hellenistic tradition
lingered on, still vigorous even in the days of its decline. Byzantine art,
though stereotyped and conventionalized, retained at least the old Greek
sense of formal decorative design. Superb churches were built; and the
influence of Byzantine architects and sculptors even spread to the West.
The labour of scholars was unremitting. Annotation and commentary
was carried on with pedantic enthusiasm; and from time to time a spark
of the old creative spirit even flickered up among the writers of the
Imperial Court. Here is one little epigram, the work of Rufinus, one of
Justinian's civil servants. It is written with all the old purity of taste and
diction a swan-song, we might say, not altogether inappropriate to the
passing of the Ancient World.

Of flowers in such sweet grace arrayed,
as my poor art might lend to them,
I fashioned for my lady's head

this simple diadem.
For here with chalked rose are met
the weeping wind-flower's fairy bell,
lilies and blue-eyed violet

and hang-head daffodil.
Forget your vanity an hour,
and wear them, kdy, while you may!
Beauty, which blossoms as a flower,

as flower must fade away.

1 It is to this fact in a large measure that we owe the survival of the classical masterpieces.

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CHAPTER XIII
THE GREEK GENIUS

In a famous choric ode, written for his play the "Antigone" in the year
441 B.C., Sophocles sketched in oudine what we may call the life-
history of mankind. Individualism had at that date barely begun to raise
its head; and if a poet's vision was ever prophetic, it was here. Man, he
says in effect, is a miracle of resource; he has learnt first to till the soil,
harness wild horse and mountain-bull and navigate the seas. "Speech and
wind-swift thought" next taught him City-life, wisdom of mind, skill of
hand and the healing of disease; and "the subtle ingenuity of his devising
leads him now to Good, now to Evil/' Yet so long as he takes Religion
and Justice for guide, both he and his city will prosper; but there remains
an alternative and "never may such an one share either my home or
my thoughts" the "Cityless Man." And this is what the Greek in the
last stage of his decline actually became, a man without roots or national
loyalties, a sojourner in strange lands, a wanderer on the face of the earth.

He was to be found everywhere, not only in the half-oriental cities of
Alexandria or Antioch, Gadara or Tarsus, but also in the Roman West.
The Imperial capital swarmed with Greeks. Unnumbered thousands
reached it as slaves; and to the not too intelligent Roman master their
varied accomplishments made such menials especially useful. They could
keep his accounts, write letters at his dictation, copy out books for him,
read aloud as he lounged or- sauntered, and entertain him after dinner
with recitations or songs. In the administrative sphere they proved them-
selves indispensable, serving as clerks or secretaries to imperial officials.
Some, even despite a servile origin, climbed into high posts- at the Palace.
As doctors too they were much in request; and under the Empire they
held a virtual monopoly of the arts, planning its buildings, painting its
frescoes, carving its portrait busts, or copying famous statues for the salons
of its rich. Juvenal, the second century satirist, complains with great
bitterness of the ubiquity of the "hungry Greekling" "schoolmaster,
elocutionist, surveyor, painter, masseur, doctor, conjuror and astrologist."

Hellenism's most powerful agent at Rome, however, was its
philosophy. It was no uncommon thing for the gentry to hire Greek
tutors for their sons; and at the same time they were not above employing
them as their own moral mentors. One man of affairs records in a letter

179

the great debt he owed to a certain Euphrates, an impressive old savant,
with flowing beard and long hair, whose lectures he had attended in early
youth and whom even in middle age he gladly took every chance to
consult. It was from such men's teaching that the educated Roman
acquired his philosophy of life; and he had before him, broadly speaking,
two choices. For shortly after Aristotle's death a sharp cleavage had
occurred in Greek thought. One school, founded by the Cypriot Zeno, 1
used to hold their discussions under a "portico" or "Stoa" in the Athenian
market-place, and for this reason they were known as the Stoics. The
other school were the followers of Zeno's contemporary Epicurus. The
outlook of both Epicureans and Stoics was at root individualist; for their
prime concern was the quest of personal happiness. Both, furthermore,
were agreed that the word was an unpleasant place to live in. But they
differed radically in their view of its metaphysical origin, and consequently
too in their prescription for making the best of it.

The Universe, according to Stoic belief, was permeated and controlled
by a Divine Power or World Soul clearly a leaf taken out of Plato's
book. From this Divine Power were derived Justice, Law and Morality;
hence to live in harmony with its principles was the one sure road to
happiness. So Duty before all else was the Stoic's rule. From that path
nothing must turn him. All honours and riches he must scorn, all passions,
emotions, even family affections he must ruthlessly suppress. Thus in
complete detachment, serving society but indifferent alike to its applause
or its threats, he might grimly face whatever life should bring, master of
his fate and captain of his soul, and happy "as a king" even though
tortured on the rack.

To the Epicureans the Universe was not a system but an accident. It
had come into being, they held, by a purely fortuitous collision and
combination of atoms an echo of early physicist doctrines and of the
Platonic view of the illusory world. From this it followed that Law and
Morality sprang not from divine and permanent principles, but from the
mutable convenienties of mankind. Religious fears and inhibitions chief
source of human miserywere mere legendmonger's fancy. The gods, if
they existed, held entirely aloof. Right and Wrong were therefore to be
determined by self-interest alone; and the individual would best find his
happiness in "escapist" pleasures some peaceful rustic retreat, intellectual
activity and the society of friends. The less high-minded interpreted the
prescription more grossly: "Let us eat, drink and be merry: for to-morrow
we die."

1 Zeno was reputed to be a Phoenician which may account for the strong fanatic element
in his teaching; for the Phoenicians, as may be learnt from the Bible, were notorious for this
quality.

1 80

Between these two opposed views of life the puzzled Romans veered.
Stoicism, it is true, produced some notable heroes among them. But
weaker characters more often contrived to combine the two views
simultaneously. Pliny, the writer of the above-mentioned letter was just
such a man. While in town he followed his mentor's precepts and stuck
to his uncongenial public duties with a conscientious tenacity. Once,
however, his favourite country mansion was reached, he surrendered
himself to the Epicurean pleasures of a literary dilettante.

Such spiritual sterility stands in gloomy contrast to the uniquely
creative vitality of the Greek prime. It is no explanation to put the fault
on the Romans. The psychological change went far deeper than that.
It was part and parcel of the political change which had come over the
Ancient World. The Greek City State, with its intense communal en-
thusiasms and passionate civic idealism, had given to men's lives an
inspiration and a driving-power which were inevitably doomed to vanish
with it. The Roman Empire was too vast and unwieldy a unit to excite
the same un-selfregarding loyalties. The rigidity, too, of its absolutist
and often tyrannical rule discouraged a free use of the mind. The Demo-
cratic spirit and all the vivid life that went with it were dead.

On the other hand, the Intellectual Awakening, which was the City-
State's supreme achievement, had come to stay. The civilized world was
henceforward to become increasingly a battle-ground of ideas ideas
which in one degree or another found their ultimate source in Hellenism.
From the analytic and critical spirit that Hellenism bred, arose the fierce
theological controversies which were the major preoccupation of early
Christendom and from which finally emerged the formal doctrines of the
Faith. The political issues of the Middle Ages, again, turned largely on
the effort of kings to establish the supremacy of Law an instrument of
government which the Romans had forged but Greek methods of
thought had tempered. Meanwhile, the leaders of the Mediaeval Church,
in their endeavour to add an intellectual to a spiritual authority, relied
almost slavishly on the forms of Aristotelian philosophy. Finally, at the
Renaissance the rediscovery of the true Hellenic spirit, with its lively
impulse to Freedom of Thought, aroused a ferment of new ideas
cultural, moral and intellectual which has never since died down. Wars
have been fought for them and countries plunged into revolution; and
our own generation has been witness of a culminating struggle between
the blind forces of a retrograde barbarism and the ideals of human dignity
and individual liberty which are the heirlooms of Ancient Greece.

Thus over a period of time, which almost certainly has not yet seen its
end, Hellenism has retained an unfailing capacity to direct and canalize

181

human effort towards a richer and worthier life, the precise content of
which it has not been the function even of Christianity to define l ; and
we are bound to ask ourselves what it was in the Greek Genius that has
made it so vital a force in the evolution of Western Society. This chapter
is in the imin an attempt to answer that question.

2

Pericles well expressed the Greek Genius when he said of his country-
men that they were "at once critical and constructive/' Through all their
history the Greek people continuously strove to bring order out of chaos;
and this they did by a twofold process, first by analysing, sifting and, so
to say, picking to pieces, then of building up out of the pieces a coherent
and rational whole. By such a process was evolved out of a medley of
primitive superstitions the Homeric conception of the Olympic gods,
each with a separate character and well-defined function. The same
process led the Ionian philosophers from their critical observation of
natural phenomena to die infinitely daring conclusion that all sprang
from a single prime source. So again with the "prophetic" ideal of
Moderation, Justice, and Reason; for this equally was an attempt to
integrate human life individual or communal. by eliminating its
extremes of passion, its social tyrannies, and its logical inconsistencies, or,
as Plato would have said, by harmonizing the discordant elements of the
soul. Thus in religion or science, ethics or metaphysics and, we may add,
in art and literature too, the same end was kept always in view the
creation of an ordered synthesis in which every detail should fall into its
place, first things rank first, the less essential be subordinate to the more
essential, yet all make their appropriate contribution to die common
whole.

Nowhere can this principle be more clearly observed than in the
Greeks' own language always a faithful mirror of a people's mentality.
In style and structure Greek linguistic methods were a complete contrast
to our own. The easy-going, loose-minded Englishman will express his
ideas in a series of independent sentences ranged side by side, as it might
be a row of single-room huts. The Greek preferred to build a more
complex and more comprehensive edifice. Viewing a group of ideas as a
logical unity, he would bring them all together into one long period in

1 It would be easy to draw up a long list of questions on which Christians have hitherto
never agreed: Is Capitalism right or Socialism wrong? Where should a precise line be drawn
between the rights of the Individual and the claims of the State? What are the ethical effects
of compulsory military training? Should the State subsidize the arts? On what principles
should the censorship of plays be conducted? and so forth. For the solution of such problems
goodwill may certainly be needed, but still more clear thought in distinguishing between
means and ends.

182

which through the subordination of clause to clause he was able to bring
out explicitly the interconnection between idea and idea "a lot of little
pieces of string," as the schoolboy ruefully put it, "all tied together in
one enormous knot." But literary knots, when skilfully tied, serve a
valuable purpose. By their very complexity they focus the mind on the
logical interplay of ideas; and it was to their precise grasp of logical
relationships that the Greeks owed the unique clarity of their thought.

"An uncriticized life," Socrates was fond of saying, "is scarcely worth
living at all"; and long before Socrates' day the Greeks, being anything
but drifters, had begun to ask themselves what life was all about and what
in it should be considered most worthwhile. A good tale is told by
Herodotus about the philosopher-statesman Solon. In the course of his
travels abroad Solon, it seems, paid a visit to Croesus the "millionaire"
King of his day. He was duly shown round the royal treasure-house; but
at the end of the tour Croesus observed him with surprise to be little
impressed. So he put him the point-blank question (which he himself felt
could admit of only one answer), "Whom do you consider die most
enviable man in the world?" "Tellus, an Athenian," was the unexpected
reply; and, as some further elucidation seemed called for, Solon con-
tinued a man of modest but adequate means, Tellus had enjoyed the
satisfaction of seeing his country prosper, his sons turn out well, all their
children grow up, and finally, to crown this exemplary life, he had died
with distinction on the field of battle. In sum, Solon said, give me a man
free from illness and deformity, immune from major disaster, the father of
satisfactory children, and (with a characteristic Greek touch) a fine fellow
to look at; then, if all goes well to the end, you may consider him happy.
The philosopher's verdict had the merit, at least, of putting the millionaire
in his place; but it also serves to show how thus early in their history the
Greeks set themselves to consider what really counted in life. The ideal
scale of values was a favourite theme for discussion among later philo-
sophers; and Aristotle for one drew up a list in order of merit. At the top
he placed Intellectual Activity; and at the bottom Wealth, "if properly
used." A little ahead of wealth came Health, Beauty and Athletic Skill;
and ahead of them again certain recognized manly virtues. The priorities,
of course, may be matter for opinion; but to have formulated a clear scale
of values at all was certainly no bad thing; it is more than most of us do.
The Greeks were the first people to attempt it; and in this they were
following their usual practice and trying to look at life as a whole, just as
in education they strove to develop the full man by training all his powers
and faculties, physical and emotional, no less than intellectual and aesthetic.

The same principle, as we have indicated, applied to their Art. With

183

them Unity of Design was the first condition of Beauty; and therein lies
the main difference between Classical and Romantic technique. In Gothic
architecture, for example, the details are seldom thus related to the whole.
More often than not the mediaeval cathedral or church is a haphazard
agglomeration of styles, built, rebuilt, altered or enlarged at half a dozen
different periods. The harmony of their effect is therefore not due to any
deliberate planning; rather it springs from the mediaeval craftsman's
instinctive knack of matching architectural details together, much as a

ON LEFT: A Gothic arch in which two different types of capital are satisfactorily combined.
ON RIGHT: A 'classical' porch in which the introduction of dissimilar capitals introduces a
jarring note.

child might match a posy of wild-flowers. At the west end of the building
the two towers may be of different shapes and sizes; perpendicular
windows may be interspersed among Norman arches; the capital on one
side of an arch may disagree with its counterpart on the other. But what
matter? The result, notwithstanding, is somehow satisfactory to the eye.
With classical art it is far otherwise. Were an architect, in designing a
classical porch, to place a Doric column on its right and an Ionic column
on its left, the result would be nothing short of excruciating. Exact
symmetry, in short, was essential. Contrast, of course, there will be.
Carved ornament will be set off by the adjacent flat surfaces; and the rake

184

of the gable will relieve the monotony of the horizontal entablature. But
the whole will be knit together by a system of geometrical balance and
of proportions calculated to the fraction of an inch into a coherent
harmony of formal design.

It is the more unfortunate, therefore, that of the surviving Greek
temples none have come down to us altogether intact. To suppose that
they look better in ruins than they did in their original state is the merest
moonshine an insult to a great race of artists. 1 But even to conjure up
an image of such temples' one-time perfection is for ourselves impossible.
It is not enough to substitute with the mind's eye a marble of pearly
whiteness in place of the present weather-stained gold, or to reconstruct
in imagination the now chipped or crumbled mouldings in their first
delicate exactitude. We must also restore the statuary that once filled the
triangle of the gable, the gilded ornaments that flamed up above it in
the glare of the southern sunshine, and the gaily painted designs which
have long since faded from the marbles' surface. The same is true of
Greek statuary. For here, too, colour was freely used to give verisimilitude
of eyes or hair and to enliven the garments by a sprinkle of pattern. And,
as with architecture, so with sculpture: no single work from the more
famous hands has come down to us intact, not even the celebrated Hermes
of Praxiteles, well-preserved though it was by its fortunate tumble into a
deep bed of clay. This Hermes, moreover probably the sole extant full
figure by an acknowledged genius was never rated very high in
antiquity. We are therefore unable wholly to appreciate what consum-
mate combination of artistry balance of poise, rhythm of line and
proportion of limb went to create the original perfection of the greater
Greek masterpieces. Even to reconstruct the missing arms of the Venus de
Milo a second-rate work has completely baffled the ingenuity of
modern imagination.

In the use of the spoken or written word, no less than in the visual arts,
Unity of Form was the invariable aim. Rhetoric that characteristic
invention of an argumentative people was studied and taught on
systematic principles. Speeches were planned from prelude to peroration
with an eye to their total effect. The Greek orator was a master of balance
and symmetry; and he was apt to carry the trick of antithesis to an un-
fortunate extreme; for it led both him and still more his Roman imitators
into the pitfall of forced contrasts. Latin poets, and even historians, were

1 It is probably impossible for any but the trained eye of the architect to appreciate such a
temple as the Parthenon to the full. To such lengths of subtlety has the design been carried
that almost every line, which is apparently straight, has in reality a scarcely perceptible
upward convex curve, thu$ avoiding the appearance of sagging. Some of these modulations
can be detected only by the touch, not seen by the eye. No people, a modern architect has
said, ever built like this; and it is in the last degree unlikely that any will build so again.

185

only too often guilty of falsifying truth in their desire for a telling point
or a stylish phrase.

In Drama the Law of Unity was carried still further. In the construction
of a Greek tragedy the scenes were as closely interrelated as the tiers of a
building. Knock one away and the whole would be spoiled. Even for the
audience to disperse between the acts (after the modern manner) would
be scarcely less disastrous. For the plot is planned to move forward in a
continuous crescendo. There are no diversions such as Shakespeare em-
ployed in his sub-plots, no comic interruptions like the drunken porter
in Macbeth. So the sense of tragedy mounts and mounts; and the tension
produced by this cumulative progression towards anticipated catastrophe
is unique in drama. The climax once reached, however, the tension is
deliberately relaxed. The Greeks preferred to end on a quiet note.

Then again the very limitations of the Greek stage itself imposed
certain restrictions on the playwright's freedom. In the absence of a
curtain the action of the play had perforce to take place in one setting;
and for the same reason it was normally conceived as falling within the
compass of a single day. Such limitations, however, were turned to
positive advantage. The Unities of Place and Time (as they came to be
called) served to emphasize and enhance the unity of the plot. In detail, too,
many self-imposed conventions were rigidly observed, even by such a
revolutionary artist as Euripides. In dialogue, for example, long set-speech
was answered by long set-speech, usually with a comment by the chorus-
leader at the close of each. Variation of tempo, when required, was pro-
duced by a more rapid interchange, character replying to character in a
series of single lines apiece. Thus a sense of formal balance was preserved
throughout; and the choric interludes with their apposite themes were
far better calculated to bind the play together than the less relevant
interventions of a modern orchestra.

Thus the technique of the playwright was reduced almost to a f^Mnula;
and, as with the other arts, the author of one generation could lejarn it
from his predecessor and then, not without improvements of his own,
hand it on to his successor of the next. Indeed, classical formalism lends
itself to imitation far more readily than does the looser technique of our
own Romantic poets and artists. No one can to-day recapture the spirit
of the Old English ballad; and modern mimicry of mediaeval Gothic has
seldom been much better than a travesty. For in a Romantic art, where
taste and instinct are everything and the heart counts for more than the

PLATE XIH
Head of a Greek statue in bronze.

J8i5

PLATE

PLATE XIV

head, even the most faithful of copyists may well miss the whole secret
of its mysterious charm. On the other hand, in classical poetry and
classical architecture there are hard-and-fast rules based on rational
principles or on mathematical formulae; and these the mind can apprehend
and so pen or hand reproduce. That is why so many playwrights in
France and Germany have looked back for thek model to the formal
unity of the Greek drama, and why the best building since the Renaissance
has been done in the classical style.

Here then lies the final answer to our original question. Unity in one
shape or another is the ultimate goal of all human thought or endeavour.
To live completely in the moment is the mark of the animal Man for his
part is bound, whether he likes it or not, to co-ordinate what he thinks,
says or does. In his daily behaviour he must in some degree be true to
himself or else be locked up as a lunatic. His sense of Beauty finds satis-
faction in harmony and is offended by discord. He must think consistently
or abandon all care for the truth. An unco-ordinated life, in fact, would
not be human at all. This the Greeks understood more clearly than any
people in history; and it is because they themselves sought with such
diligence and so much penetration after intellectual, aesthetic and even
(within certain limits) after ethical unity that their example has inspired
in others the desire to continue the quest and 'their methods have furnished
the classical model how best to conduct it. So the spirit of Hellas lives on.

3

Of the intellectual and aesthetic sides of the Greek Genius enough has
already been said; the third and more important side remains still to be
discussed. It has sometimes been held against the Greeks that they lacked
a moral sense and that ethically they were somehow inferior to the
Romans. This ill reputation is an unfortunate legacy of the worst period
of their decline; for in the time of the Roman Empire the charge of
shallowness and instability of character was certainly not unmerited. But
at their best the Greeks would have had little enough to learn from a
people whose favourite form of punishment was crucifixion and whose
idea of spreading culture was to erect provincial amphitheatres for
repulsive scenes of carnage. When Greek comedies came to be adapted
to the taste of Roman audiences, it was even thought necessary to spice

PLATE XIV

Part of the Parthenon Frieze, designed by Phidias and carried out by one of his pupils or

assistants. Though this frieze was placed as high above the spectator as a third floor window

the detail was of the most exquisite finish.

187

them up with sadistic jokes about the chastisement of slaves. On the other
hand, about tolerance and humanity and the minor decencies of life, there
was little the Romans knew which the Greeks had not taught them. No
people ever thought more about morality or discussed its problems more
earnestly. Even an Athenian comedy-writer, as we have already seen,
could make his championship of the old-fashioned virtues the theme of a
play. If the Greeks fell short of their ideals in practice, the same is true of
us all; and, to do them justice, they lived up more closely to their own
limited code than does the modern man to the precepts of the Sermon on
the Mount. Nor should we apply to their case any other criterion than
we apply, let us say, to the Jews. We must judge them by their best
products, not by their worst, by the Athenians rather than by the Spartans,
and by the Athenians of the fifth century rather than of the fourth.

Direct literary evidence about private ways and personal character

during the Periclean epoch is unhappily scanty. Thucydides tells little of

everyday life. Aristophanes belonged rather to the beginning of the

decline; and in any case comedy by its very nature tends to lay exaggerated

emphasis on men's foibles and vices. Yet, if we must allow some basis of

fact for the satirist's caricatures, so equally must we allow the same for the

idealization of poets and artists. The personalities of Sophoclean drama

reflected, we may be sure, the best Athenian type, just as the characters

of Tennyson's Morte d' Arthur reflected the id-eals of the mid-Victorian

gentleman. Similar evidence may be gleaned from the sculptured figures

to be found on tomb-stones or in the Parthenon Frieze. And to these may

be added the testimony of numberless vase-paintings. 1 The impression

thus to be gathered is of men who first and foremost have looked life and

suffering in the face and have triumphed over them, men of strong

character, dignified, free from meanness or pettiness, superb in their

physical development and highly self-controlled in their actions,

courteous, thoughtfully grave, and, according to their lights, humane.

By comparison with such men the upper-class Old Testament Jew,

whatever his virtues, might have seemed luxury-loving, obsequious,

intellectually null, and physically flabby; and his Roman counterpart

over-drilled, insensitive, unmannerly and brutal. The lot of a slave under

Athenian masters by no means an irrelevant test must have been vastly

preferable to service in the household of an Augustan nobleman. It might

even have compared favourably with the lot of some female drudge in a

mid-Victorian basement, to say nothing of the child-sweep who was set

to scale the chimneys of our great-great-grandfathers' mansions.

1 It must be remembered, however, that as many of these were employed in decorating
drinking-cups or wine-jars, they tend to emphasize the worst side of Greek character-
its prevalency to drunkenness.

188

The character of the Greeks none the less had many serious limitations;
and these, as was but natural, arose from their historical background.
Their moral sense had originally grown (as among all early peoples) out
of the primitive tribal code. Deeply-rooted in their minds was a sense of
Propriety or Good Form. They themselves called it "Shame," an instinct
bred by long social habit, which told them to be courteous towards
strangers and respectful towards the old, to keep their bodies fit, to behave
demurely in public, and, in general, to do as their fellows did. This sense
of "shame" represented in fact the germ of a conscience, but no more
than a germ. For "Sin" the Greeks had no word; for they lacked any real
sense of contrition. Its nearest verbal equivalent (used in Biblical Greek)
meant literally a "mis-hit," a blunder or false step which might expose
them to Divine Wrath or Nemesis. The idea was given a more rational
and precise definition by the poets and thinkers who preached the need
for moderation and self-mastery, the doctrine of "Meden Agan." It told
of a straight path to be followed, any deviation from which into violent
extremes would inevitably lead to disaster 1 ; and not even Socrates and
Plato could altogether rid their minds of the belief that, if only men knew
the path, they would automatically follow it. The same idea was some-
what differently expressed in the Greeks' conception of Justice a con-
ception symptomatic of the advance from a tribal to a more strictly
political society. The original meaning of the word Justice or "Dike"
was a "Way" the way, that is, hallowed by established custom. But it
signified something more than judicial or constitutional correctness. It
might also be applied to personal rectitude; so that Plato could define
Justice as the condition of mind which creates harmony both in the State
and within the individual soul. St. Paul was later to use it of Righteousness
in the sight of God.

Meanwhile "Virtue" or "Arete," as we have pointed out above, was
more narrowly identified with the ideal of good citizenship; and despite
philosophic attempts to widen its scope, the original significance clung
the perfect pattern of what a man should be as member of a community.
This close identification of civic and personal virtue reached its climax
under the intense communal life of the Polis. Psychologically it may be
said to correspond with the adolescent phase in the life of an individual,
during which he will accept almost unquestioningly the code of his
fellows and be content simply to become a good member of the team.

1 By comparison the path sometimes followed in the name of conscience would have
appeared to the Greeks somewhat devious. They would have been puzzled by the cruelties
of the Inquisition or the fanaticism and eccentricities of some Puritan sects. The complacency
and sense of infallibility which over-conscientiousness sometimes breeds might even have
struck them as a challenge to Nemesis.

189

Unhappily, before the Greeks could outgrow this phase, the stress and
strain of political events distorted their whole moral outlook. If after the
Persian wars Pan-Hellenic unity had been achieved, it is not impossible
that the better side of their nature might have triumphed; but, as things
were, the pressure of economic and other forces drove them in an opposite
and fatal direction. During the fifth century the most formative period
of their history the bitter antagonisms between State and State were
progressively reproduced first as between faction and faction, and then as
between man and man. Thucydides has shown how the cynicism bred of
the bitter experiences of the Peloponnesian War was reflected in a com-
plete breakdown of religious and moral codes; and in one famous passage
of the Funeral Speech (not quoted above) we actually find Pericles
Himself giving the selfish principles of state policy a universal application
to everyday life, and bluntly asserting that the primary motive of con-
ferring a favour is to pkce the recipient under a debt. The individual, in
short, was driven to take his cue from the State; and when the State itself
began to go to pieces, the individual was left with little to fall back on
beyond the evil lessons he had learned from it. Moral bankruptcy was
thus the inevitable sequel to political bankruptcy.

It is not least among the miracles of history that at such a time of
disillusionment and anarchy Plato was capable of rising to the sublimest
heights of moral idealism. "For him," it has been said, "Love of the Divine
was at once the inspiration and the reward of the moral life." The vision
of a philosopher could scarcely reach further; but Plato's solitary voice
could not dispel the darkness of fourth-century Greece. The harsh
struggle for existence ran on; and the trend of current thought was more
accurately reflected by Aristotle than by his more visionary master. From
Plato's Utopian endeavour to re-establish the supremacy of Society's
claims, Aristotle fell back on what in essence was an Individualist stand-
point. The summit of human bliss and attainment, he held, because
"desirable for its own sake alone and serving no ulterior purpose," was
the life of intellectual activity which he called "Contemplation." Such
emphasis on things of the mind was unexceptionable; few of us, after all,
would deny the palm to a Shakespeare or a Newton. It is rather the
implication of moral self-sufficiency that runs counter to the modern and
Christian conception. The truth is that from first to last Greek thought
was cursed with an ego-centric tendency; and at the end, as we have seen,
self-realization and self-satisfaction came to be nakedly avowed as the
goal of the philosopher's quest.

At the same time to imagine that there was no kindness or generosity
among the ancient Greeks would be a grave injustice. No people ever set

190

a higher value on Friendship; and family ties, especially perhaps as
between father and son, were immensely strong. Such plays as the
"Antigone" would have had little meaning unless acts of devotion had
been greatly admired; and during the Plague, on Thucydides* own
showing, many Athenians sacrificed their lives in succouring those they
loved and even, we may infer, their neighbours. But such altruism had
its limits. It was not extended to all and sundry. Whether an Athenian
would have gone out of his way to tend a wounded Spartan on the
battlefield is more than doubtful. It is very certain that for a Persian he
would not have stirred a finger. There is much, in fact, to be said for the
view 1 that in spite of their phenomenal cultural development the
Greeks were still living ethically in the atmosphere of the tribe. Their
loyalties were the tribal loyalties of kinship and common interest. "Love
those," their code said, "from whom you may expect as much again."
The complementary rule "Hate your enemy" was equally a survival of
the old intertribal feuds, and perhaps of the vendetta. In Attic drama die
prayer most constantly on the lips of both male and female characters
was "Blessing to my friends and all manner of misfortune to my foes!"
The average man in his daily practice made no bones about the matter.
It was a positive duty to get even with his adversary; and when a litigant
in Court, he would ostentatiously boast of his long-standing grudges and
of his satisfaction at the chance to repay them. Like so much else in his life,
Socrates' forgiveness of the jury who condemned him was wholly
exceptional. So, if a Greek prided himself (as he did) on his capacity for
mercy and pity, its application was reserved for a comparatively narrow
circle. 2 It might extend, let us say, to a faithful slave of his household, but
most certainly not to slaves in the mass. This may help to explain, though
not to condone Aristotle's callous defence of the system; and his glib
logic-chopping phrase about "human instruments" remains a crowning
revelation of Greek limitations. Nor can we readily forget the Athenian
Nicias with his thousand miserable chattels in the Laureum silver-mines
and his life spent in the sterile observance of all the orthodox pieties.

Few things in antiquity are more difficult to determine than the
relationship between Religion and Conduct. On one point, however, let
there be no mistake. The Greeks took their worship very seriously. They
believed profoundly in the ability of the Unseen Powers to help or to
harm them; and in moments of distress, such as the Athenian soldiers

1 See F. R. Earp's "The Way of the Greeks," to which this and succeeding paragraphs

W ? ^n qu i te recent years Feudal Custom has had a similar hangover in the ethical oudook
of English society. One attitude towards the rich and another towards the poor is even now
by no means extinct.

191

experienced on the seashore at Syracuse, it was their habit to turn instinc-
tively to prayer. But their religion was nothing if not institutional. It was
rooted and grounded in the observance of a ritual, at which ancestral
custom perhaps the strongest force in their lives made attendance
well-nigh compulsory. It was as natural among the ancients as it is
inconceivable among ourselves for the entire population of a city to join
together in an act of worship, whether at the annual celebration of some
patron god or goddess, or at the inauguration of a naval expedition.
Religion even pervaded the commonest acts of life. Before drinking wine

Two women make offerings at the Shrine of the Wine-god Dionysus or Bacchus. (From a
vase.) One with a ladle pours a libation from her jar into the large receptacle before the
god's image.

it was the habit with the Greek of those days (as it still is with his modern
descendant) to tip out a drop or two on the ground. For him it was a
conscious act of reverence, an offering to some deity.

All this, however, did not necessarily imply that ritual was meaningless;
but rather that what ritual should mean to the individual was left to the
individual's choice. An ^Eschylus could read the deepest truths into the
traditional myths and time-hallowed customs. The critical Sophist could
pull the characters of the Olympians to pieces without giving serious
offence. Strangest of all to our way of thinking, Aristophanes, a thorough-
going conservative, could actually make a god the leading buffoon in one

192

of his comedies. It all comes to this. There was no orthodox creed; nor,
indeed, did there exist any authoritative voice to dictate one. Provided a
man played his part in the outward observances, he was free to think of
them what he liked a fact which no doubt did much to avert the danger
of religious intolerance or persecution.

At the same rime we can clearly discern a gradual but steady advance
towards a more spiritual interpretation of ritual. Sacrifice, it came to be
thought, was more acceptable to the Deity when it was offered by worthy

Offerings to the dead, whose spirits may be seen hovering round the tomb. (From a
painting on a white vase.)

hands. All the while, too, the tragedians were striving to educate their
audiences. A play like the "Antigone" raised crucial religious problems:
what was true piety? and what false? And its heroine appealed, as we have
seen, from the ordinance of man to the "unwritten laws of God." It is
unlikely that such teaching would fall on wholly deaf ears. Taken all in
all, therefore, Greek religion cannot have failed to play an important part
in the formatioif of character. To the devout, who had eyes to look below
the surface, ritual might hold a genuinely moral significance. On the
majority it must have exercised an unconscious but none the less a refining
influence not least because it made a strong appeal to their innate sense

193

of the beautiful. It was not for nothing that the Greeks spent so much
labour on the adornment of their temples or that the skill of their greatest
artists was devoted in the main to the sculptural representation of the
gods. It used to be said in antiquity that the mere sight of Phidias' famous
statue of Olympian Zeus was in itself a spiritual education. 1

On one point and an important point the Greeks were frankly puzzled.
Their belief in an after-life was painfully vague. Pericles in his Funeral
Speech made no allusion whatever to immortality, beyond his reference
to the "memory which will live on in men's hearts." Even mythology
spoke with no very certain voice. It told indeed of certain exceptional
sinners who suffered picturesque torments appropriate to their crimes,
and of certain exceptional heroes who enjoyed the pleasures of friendship
and sport in the "asphodel meadows" of an ill-defined Elysium. But
ordinary mortals, good, bad and indifferent alike, were all bundled into
Hades without discrimination; and, though Socrates could quote
legendary authority for a tribunal of Four Just Judges, popular belief in
these remained of the shadowiest. The philosopher's sociable anticipations
of the Underworld were correspondingly a triumph of optimism. To
the man-in-the-street the prospect of that phantom realm was most
unattractive. It suggested a tenuous and comfortless existence no more
than a pallid reflection of his life on earth in which his dead soul would
pine for the warmth and the sunlight and the full-blooded activities he
had there left behind him.

There was indeed one form of Greek religion which claimed to afford
a more comforting hope. Closely associated with the Orphic Movement
(in which the school of Pythagoras appears to have been mixed up) there
were certain Mystery Cults, the most popular of which had its seat at
Eleusis near Athens. To these mysteries initiates alone were admitted, and
that only after a prescribed course of purification. What secrets were
witnessed by the privileged few in the darkened hall at Eleusis no one
ever divulged. It is known, however, that they were somehow connected
with the spirit of spring-time growth and Nature's annml resurrection;
and there can be little doubt that in the ecstasy of rapture which mass-
emotion induced the mystics experienced some inner assurance of a better
life to come. Equally it would appear that they gained from the sacra-
mental rite a sense of communion with the deity- and of purgation from
the stain of sin. It may well have been this aspect of the cult which led

1 Religious values apart, it would be an instructive and not unfair analogy to consider
the effect of compulsory attendance at school-chapels. The few agnostics may thinlr their own
thoughts. The devout find real opportunity for worship. The remainder will be influenced
by the sermons (vaguely corresponding to the moralization of the ancient tragedians) and
stifl more by the atmosphere of congregational fervour and the beauty of the music and the
architectural surroundings.

194

St. Paul to employ the word "mysterion" in speaking of the Christian
Faith itself. For all that, the experience can scarcely have been more than
a superficial and passing mood. The cult had no deep moral influence.
Even its preliminary purifications were confined to abstention from
various kinds of food and other physical indulgence; and, though Aristo-
phanesperhaps playfully suggests that rogues, smugglers and traitors
should be banned from their company, there is no solid evidence to show
that the devotees became better men than their fellows.

Such unrestrained emotionalism, in any case, ran counter to the attitude
of the more thoughtful Greeks; and Socrates was probably typical in
declining initiation. It was against his principles to put faith in anything
so manifestly irrational. Nevertheless, if the Greeks had one fault more
than another, it was, we must admit, an intellectual impatience. Among
their early physicist-philosophers an eagerness to spin theories before
they had fully observed proved a fatal handicap to real scientific progress;
and the same overhaste to rationalize all things in heaven and earth went
a long way to paralyse their religious development. Apart from one or
two notable exceptions, they were unable to think deeply and feel deeply
at one and the same time. Thus Homer, in his desire to clarify the character
of the gods, made them so deplorably human that they could hardly
command the respect of any thinking man. The subsequent efforts of
poets and artists to restore the lost dignity was largely offset by the
unsettling influence of speculative criticism; and finally, when the
sceptical habit grew, and belief in mythology crumbled, philosophy
erected in its place a conception of the Deity so abstract and impersonal
that it could make no cogent appeal to more than a few rare spirits.

When all is said, however, God was not to the Greeks, as he was to
the Hebrews, the main source of their idealism. It was Man that they
placed at the centre of their universe; and it was their intense preoccupa-
tion with man's affairs and problems that made them what they were.
Their Humanism brought to them, as it has brought to the rest of man-
kind, many troubles as well as many triumphs; and there is no real
paradox in the fact that its greatest gift "whether for good or for evil"
(as Sophocles would say) was the product not of their palmier days, but
of die unhappy period of their political and moral decline. For, just when
they were engaged in criticizing almost everything else out of existence,
they achieved the supreme feat of their constructive faculty they
created the Individual Man.

Individualism was born, where alone perhaps it could have been born,
in the narrow cradle of the diminutive republics founded by a people
endowed with unique social and intellectual gifts. From these it was carried

195

outwards, first by Alexander's conquests to the East, then to Rome and
the West, till it came at last to permeate most of the civilized world. In
the process the conception was doubtless enlarged and strengthened under
the influence of new environments; but it is none the less difficult to resist
the conclusion that the contribution of Greece remained paramount.

Christianity is so commonly thought of in relation to its Jewish origin
that we are apt to forget what it owed also to the Greeks. When the
Christian era began, the Jews themselves had for more than two hundred
years been subjected to Hellenistic influences. Their Alexandrian theolo-
gians, such as Philo, the contemporary of Christ, were steeped in Platonic
and Aristotelian philosophy. But the Jews were not primarily thinkers.
Rather it was a profound religious experience that shaped their ideas;
and these had undergone what was probably a quite independent develop-
ment. Their earlier prophets, even when preaching the social virtues of
mercy and justice, had always spoken in terms of the race: "Israel" was
to be punished for her sins or rewarded for heir piety. It was not till
Ezekiel that the idea of personal responsibility for guilt emerged. Thence-
forward and particularly during the Hellenistic period (though how far
as a result of Greek influence is very difficult to say) greater and greater
emphasis was laid on personal behaviour. In the writings of that period,
notably Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, and parts of Proverbs, their precepts are
addressed no longer to "Israel," but to the individual man. Hope of a
personal immortality correspondingly gained ground; and in our Lord's
day the Pharisees were 2ealously preoccupied with the salvation of their
own souls.

But the conviction that a man is responsible for his actions is only one
aspect of Individualism. A sense of personal status, derived from the Deity,
was a Greek rather than, a Jewish idea. It may be said to have originated
with Plato; but the Stoics carried it further, holding that all members
of the human race were of equal status, Hellenes and barbarians, freemen
and slaves. In the third century A.D., if not before, this Greek intellectual
conception, merging with the Jewish religious conception, served to
crystallize the specifically Christian doctrine that every individual has a
supreme and equal value in the eyes of God. With these two strands was
probably interwoven a third, the conception drawn from the political
institutions of the Roman Empire which is expressed in St. Paul's well-
known saying, "Our citizenship is in Heaven."

As himself a freeborn "citizen" of the Roman Empire, Paul was
immensely proud of the privilege; but in the development of his mind,
by far the more important influence was Hellenism; and this it was that
very largely served to control and clarify the somewhat diffuse and turgid

196

flow of his Hebraic thought and so make possible his supreme contribution
towards building the foundations of the Christian Faith. He had been
brought up as a boy in the semi-Greek city of Tarsus, a University town;
and he was able, we know, to quote from die works of a Greek Stoic poet.
Throughout his missionary life he was in almost daily contact with
Greeks or Hellenized Jews; and in his correspondence he was for ever
engaged in answering die difficulties raised by their inquisitive and critical
minds. Thus the interplay of the two currents of thought, Hebrew and
Greek, is manifest in nearly all that he wrote, and not least in his final
solution of the problem with which he had wresded so long. The watch-
word of Hellenism, it has been said, was Liberty, and of the Jews Obedi-
ence; but Paul found a synthesis of the two when he proclaimed the
"service which is perfect freedom."

On the Greeks of the best period the religious implications of the
Aposde's words would, of course, have been utterly lost; but at the same
the significance of his paradox is by no means lessened if we
remember how these Greeks themselves conceived of liberty. Liberty to
them did not mean licence. Control by irresponsible or irrational authority
they consistendy repudiated, but never the need for discipline voluntarily
accepted, or, better still, self-imposed. Every civilization is based upon
disciplines of one sort or another; but, on a broad view, none were ever
more rigorous than theirs; and of this their very habits of mind an
indication of character which we tend often to underestimate were a
most revealing evidence. It was an intellectual discipline, uniquely strict
in the use of language and logic, which gave them their extraordinary
philosophic pre-eminence. And their aesthetic standards the constraint
which art sets on emotion were at least equally severe. No poets have
ever laid on themselves the shackles of such exacting metrical forms; no
dramatists have obeyed such a rigid convention; and the technical
mediods of their sculptors and builders called for a combination of
mental and manual precision which has no parallel. People of such a
temper were litde likely to shirk difficulties or refuse to face issues squarely.

Then again, politically, socially and even, from certain aspects, morally,
too, the Greek were, next to the Romans, the most disciplined race in
antiquity. Their democratic type of government would never have
worked for a day without a dose regard for constitutional rules; and,
turbulent as their assemblies must often have been (for they were an
excitable people) there is nothing to show that debates ever got out of
hand. Their military tactics demanded strenuous and accurate practice in
concerted movement; and it was dbis superior discipline which won them
their wars against Persia. Physical training was a national institution; and

19?

much of their dancing, a national pastime, was a species of musical drill.
They enjoyed the ordered dignity of ceremonial; and their manners, if
we except a blatancy about sex, showed a strong sense of decorum. They
lived hard, energetic lives, holding effeminacy and indolence in special
scorn; nor despite occasional orgies can they be considered by habit a
self-indulgent race. Whatever their ethical shortcomings, they had their
own peculiar virtues the disciplined virtues of Restraint, Reason and
Justice which their moralists so insistently preached. Thus they were free
from the Jews' fanaticism and intolerance. They were not, like the
Egyptians, the priest-ridden victims of gross superstition; and among them,
take it all in all, the average citizen received a far fairer deal than at Rome.

Even when the spirit of Individualism grew, all was not immediately
lost. A Plato's idealism could still attract a steady flow of pupils; and
many of the finer spirits saw with the Stoics that Individualism was a
challenge to greater self-mastery and not less. But logic and precept are
not, in the long run, enough. Once the stimulus of patriotism was gone,
man found themselves left, as we have seen, without a compelling motive;
and in default of this the soul of Greece turned inwards upon itself. Art
and literature increasingly echoed the past. The schools of philosophy
lapsed, as Paul in his day discovered, into an academic sterility. Cynicism
spread among the more thoughtful, and libertinism among the less. So
character deteriorated till when Trajan the Emperor (like Juvenal the
satirist) wrote about these incorrigible "Greeklings," he was voicing the
sentiment almost universal among Romans a half-pitiful contempt.

Individualism clearly is a dangerous adventure, as indeed for that
matter are most good things in life. Nevertheless, without that heritage
modern civilization would be something quite other than what it is.
The whole fabric of our European and Christian tradition is rooted in the
doctrine so rudely challened by Totalitarian creeds that the State exists
for the Individual, not the Individual for die State. And Toleration, that
hall-mark of a truly civilized society, implies the threefold right of the
Individual, to think his own thoughts, to utter them in public, and, so
far as the welfare of his fellows will permit, to act in accordance with his
own private conscience. This conception we owe to the Greeks; and, if
Greece herself, as a political entity, was doomed to perish in bringing it
to birth, that would not be a solitary example in history of the "seed
which cannot be quickened except it die." To wish that her historic
development had Mowed different lines would be not merely futile,
but wrong-headed. "Individualism," it has been said, "may have destroyed
many empires, but it is still the most precious thing the human race
possesses." ZJto Hellas !

198

INDEX

ACHAEAN League, 166

Achseans, 18

Achilles, 20

^Egina, 62, 74

^Egospotami, 123

^Eschylus, 92

^Etolian League, 166

Agamemnon, 18

Agesilaus, 152

Alcibiades, 97, 113 et

Alexander of Macedon, 162 et seq.

Alexandria, 163, 166

Alphabet, 39

Anacreon, 51

Anaxagoras, 92, 114

Anaximander, 40

Antigone, 99

Antiochus Epiphanes, 153

Apis, 14

Arabia, 165

Arbela, 164

Aret, 140, 189

Arginusae, 122

Argos, 113

Aristophanes, 102

Aristotle, 169

Armour, 63

Artaxerxes, 153

Assembly, 54. 88

Athens, 28, 32, 45, 65, 68 et seq.

BANKING, 156
Brasidas, 112
Byzantium, 178

CALUMACHUS, 174
Cambyses, 60
Chxronea, 152

Chaltidice, 112
Cimon, 67, 71
Cleisthenes, 53, 60
Cleon, in et seq.
Cleophon, 122
"Clouds," 103
Cnidus, 153
Colonisation, 32
Comedy, 101
Conon, 153
Corcyra, 107, 120
Corinth, 32, 74, 107, 153
Council, 87
Crete, 16

Croesus, 44, 60, 183
Cyrus the Great, 59
Cyrus, Prince, 152

DAJUUS, 60

Debt, 47

Decelea, 119

Delian League, 66, 72, 155

Delium, 112

Delphic Oracle, 57, 63

shrine, 160
Demosthenes the General, in

the Orator, 161 et seq.
Diogenes, 142
Dionysia, 52, 84
Dionysius of Syracuse, 157
Drama, 84, 186

EDUCATION, 94
Egypt, 13, 40, 72
Eleusis, 194

Epaminondas, 154 et seq.
Ephesus, 44
Epicurus, 1 80

199

Epigram, 176
Ether, 170
Euboea, 74
Eubulus, 157
Euclid, 173
Euripides, 100
Eurymcdon, 67
Evagoras, 157

GENERALS, The Ten, 88
Granicus, 163
Gylippus, 117

HELLAS, 56
Helots, 35, 37, 71
Heraditus, 42
Hermes, 115

Herodotus, 13, 49, 61, 63
Hesiod, 46
Hexameter, 43
Hippias, 52, 61
Hippocrates, 171
Homer, 19 et seq.

Law, Greek, 90
Leonidas, 63
Lesbos, in
Leuctra, 153
Lydia, 32, 44
Lysander, 123, 152

MACEDON, 159 et seq.
Alantinea, 114, 154
Marathon, 61
Megalopolis, 154
Megara, 74, 107, 112
Meleager, 176
Menander, 149
Messenia, 35
Metics, 124
Migrations, 15, 19
Miletus, 39, 44
Miltiades, 6r
Mindarus, 122
Minos, 1 6
Mycenae, 15
Mystery Cults, 194

ILIAD, 20
Immortality, 194
Individualism, 195
Ionia, 19, 38 et seq.
Isocrates, 157
Issus, 163
Ithome, 71

JERUSALEM, 91
Jews, 167
Juries, 91
Justinian, 178

KINGSHIP, 26

LACEDJEMON, 35
Laureum, 62

NAUPACTTTS, 74, 108
Nausicaa, 22
Nicias, no et seq.

ODYSSEY, 20
Olive, 47
Olympia, 58
Olynthus, 161
Orphism, 41, 194
Ostracism, 53

PANATHENEA, 52, 83
Parthenon, 75
Paul, 196
Pericles, 70 et seq.
Persia, 59 et seq.
Phidias, 75

2OO

Philip of Macedon, 159 et seq.

Phocis, 160

Phoenicia, 39, 63

Piraeus, 62

Pisistratus, 50

Plague, 108

Pktaea,66

Pkto,

Polis, 28

Population of Athens, 131

Potidaea, 107

Pottery, 48

Praxiteles, 185

Protagoras, 95

Ptolemy, 165

Pylos, in

Pythagoras, 41

RELIGION, 23, 191
Republic of Pkto, 144
Rufinus, 178

Solon, 47, 183
Sophists, 94
Sophocles, 99
Soul, 136
Sparta, 34 et seq.
Sphacteria, 112
Stoics, 181
Susa,59
Syracuse, 115

THAIES, 40

Thebes, 74, 154

Themistocles, 62, 65

Theocritus, 174

Theramenes, 121

Thermopylae, 60, 160

Thucydides the Historian, 76, 106 et

seq.

the Politician, 81
Troy, 18
Tyrants, 50

SALAMIS, 65

Sappho, 43

Sardis, 153

Seleucids, 165 '

Septuagint, 167

Sicily, 114

Silver, 62

Simonides, 51

Skves, 125

Socrates, 88, 123, 135 etseq.

UNDERWORLD, 12, 25, 194

WOMEN, 128, 149

XERXES, 62

ZENO, 180

201